Water soluble

A big issue with those of us who work in both ink and paint is whether the ink will bleed when you put watercolor on top of it. A lot of urban sketchers use fountain pens, and the ink with which they are sold is water soluble, so they switch it out for something that isn't. Or, they develop a style that incorporates the bleed! Some also use dip pens with India ink, and that can be problematic, since that ink will move again after drying, though not as much. Of course "movable" ink can also be an advantage if you want to use it specifically for shading.

I use a Uniball Vision fine-point pen because while it's water soluble while wet, once it dries it is not—or so little as to be virtually undetectable. I like to be able to draw first in pen and then add the watercolor layer without worrying about bleeding, smudging, or the graying out of my colors.

Something I have never done, however, except for shading eyes at the very end, is to purposely use the Uniball's water-soluble tendencies before it has dried. I watched a portrait lesson by Lewis Rossignol, who likewise uses the Uniball, but he comes in with a damp or wet paintbrush before the ink has dried, in order to soften lines, pull out shadows, or emphasize a particularly deep wrinkle. So I decided to try out the technique today on a portrait of Kurt Vonnegut, who has lots of nice wrinkly real estate on his face that can be dealt with interestingly.

I also followed Rossignol's drawing method for the face, which is somewhat similar to the one I always use, although he does more mapping than I do. My habit is just to start with an eye, do the other eye, then move on to the nose and mouth, and then surround it with face—it's easier (I think) than the standard method of drawing an oval for the face and then crosswise lines for eyes, nose and mouth. I draw this way because standard = generic. You can usually tell when somebody uses the oval-and-line method, because their portraits all have a certain similarity one to another. Lewis maps out the face in sections, lightly, with pencil or charcoal, which in some ways works a bit better than my method because it gives you a good chance of getting everything situated properly and in proportion. I will probably pursue this change in the future.

I remembered to take some process photos as I went along. The first is the "map," and the two subsequent are at various stages of the ink-and-smudge process with the Uniball.

   

I'm almost sorry I added color; my plan was to colorize only the eyes and the lips, but then I added a little pink into his cheeks and eyelids, and when it didn't work by itself I had to keep going. I ended up adding color everywhere, but I didn't go full-on like I usually do.

"KurtHumanist"—pencil, Uniball pen, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 9x12 inches.