Aquafine Watercolour Inks and Hahnemühle

 

Hahnemühle has released another new paper called Hemp Sketch, part of their natural line. A natural white paper with a fine grain surface recommended for dry painting techniques. Hmmm. Dry painting. I really like to use a whole lot of water and at a mere 40 lbs I wasn't sure this paper could take it. You know what that means, right? Yep! I gotta try it! 

About that same time I was blessed to receive some new inks. Aquafine Watercolour Inks from Daler Rowney. I use their acrylic inks already but had not seen the watercolor line. I pulled out a sheet of the Hemp Sketch - about 6" x 8" - the inks, some water and a palette that was just waiting to be used. 

Here is a little better look. And if you click on the photo it will enlarge. That would be Maine in the background, bear cave to the right. Not even kidding. The Aquafine colours I received are: Quinacridone Magenta, Cadmium Red Hue, Lemon Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Coeruleum Hue (blue), Ultramarine Blue Dark, Burnt Umber and Lamp Black. I really dislike using red but I'll try it. Did not think I would like the yellow ochre at all. And brown and black are not my favorites either. Hahahaha! I figure they will make awesome spatters. I labeled the palette and put a dropper full of color in each well. 

This is the piece of art I tangled to get started. If you look closely (you can enlarge) you will see my lines are not that neat. They don't always stop where they should and they cross over into areas they shouldn't. I want you to see that I am not perfect. I don't even try to be. Did enough of that when I was younger. You know what I mean? And besides, once I am done you will never notice those little boops and whoops anyway! 

And this is what I did. The flowers are all painted using the Aquafine watercolour inks. I just dipped my brush right into the wells of ink and painted them onto the flowers. And you know what? I used the red and burnt umber and yellow ochre and I liked them all. Weird. Hahahaha! The yellow ochre is actually pretty cool - it is on that lower right flower. And again - look at all my boops and whoops! I didn't have a green Aquafine for the background, so I mixed some of the lemon yellow with the coeruleum hue (blue) and made my own. I used a lot of water on that background. On this 40 lb paper.  I seriously didn't know if this would work or not, but I kept right on working! 

Once dry, I used a Sharpie ultra fine and fine tip pen for the line work. And just look at those boops and whoops disappear into the background. I love it! The way we outline and backline the petals covers up all those flaws. 

I used a white Posca Paint Pen to add highlights to each of the flowers. In the background I used a stamp from Totally Tracy to add some much needed texture. I love how this turned out. Even though the paper was light weight and not meant for all the wet I added to it - it worked just fine! So I thought I'd try another piece of Hemp Sketch and see what happens when I just paint straight onto it. 

Long story short . . . it worked.  No background . . . I am thinking I may run these through the sticker machine and use them one at a time in my daily journal. Let me show you what it looked like before the line work and highlights.

Such a difference a little pen work makes! I did one more thing with the Aquafine Watercolour Inks! 

I made 4" x 6" Bristol cards to use in my daily journal with ICAD. Index card a day. I am using Hahnemühle's Bristol for most of my cards. To color these, I dropped a bit of color onto my craft mat, sprayed it with water, then dipped or dragged or smooshed the paper right into the color. Then placed them one by one onto my fancy pants drying area. Large piece of heavy duty cardboard backing on top of my studio garbage can. Works great! I used my small craft sewing machine to add some zigzag stitching around the edges of the cards and added them to stack - actually I've already used at least one of them. 

On this card for day 22 of ICAD. The card is the same green one you see in the photo above. I also colored both flowers with the Aquafine inks. They work great! Thank you to my dear friend that gifted me with them! I have used everyone except black. I need to make some spatters. I love doing that! Hahahaha! Let me move the iPad! 

Visit my Etsy Shop by clicking here. 10% of all sales during July goes to the International Child Art Foundation. 

Hahnemühle Hemp Sketch can be purchased here. 

Daler Rowney Aquafine Watercolour Inks can be purchased here. 

Hahnemühle Bristol can be purchased here.