Watercolors? Ink pen for drawing?

[lizzzi]

I find myself doing a lot of doodling and thinking about things I'd like to draw--leaves and botanicals, or maybe birds that I see in the woods, and/or maybe interesting fantasy worlds that I invent for my spec. fiction, and describe in words, not pictures that I draw. I've never given much thought or time to drawing and painting, and am pretty much totally ignorant--but I'd like to start...just for pleasure and what the hey.  So in terms of basic watercolor supplies and paper, and basic supplies for pen and ink drawing (can I just use my RSVP Pentels?) what do MMM artists think I should get up at Michael's or perhaps order from 'Zon to get started with? I know there is a lot posted on line about this, but I'm interested in a nice common sense balance between quality and economy.

[Orvell]

YAY ART!
First rule of art: whatever you make shit with will probably work. It's what you do, not what you do it with that is the process of art.
Second rule of art: there is always a level-up in terms of fancy if you want to go there.

Here's what I use (I do watercolor and ink too!):
http://tinyurl.com/hspvbqp
It's a liquid watercolor setup. It's over $50, but it has lasted me so far 6 years and is still going strong. Liquid watercolor is... incredibly long-lasting.

When it comes to pens, I use a combination. I use a dip pen I just picked up from an art store (standard array of nib options, nothing fancy) and a Pretty Fancy Rotring fountain pen.
http://www.dickblick.com/products/rotring-art-pens/
(note: I use a converter cartridge and put my own ink in it. Because I'm fussy.)

Dip pens are a lot easier to clean, and you can use any ink with them. Fountain pens are temperamental, high maintenance little divas and you need to be verrry careful about what goes in 'em or they get all crusty and sad. Dip ink I have is standard India Ink, fountain pen ink I use is Radiographic brand and about 3X the price (but soooo niiice).
The trick for you will be to try lots of things! Try them cheaply, though. And if you do inks FIRST and then colors (I do it that way usually) make sure what you use is at least 90% waterproof.

Another note: ALWAYS use acid free, light fast materials, archival if possible.

[Lulee]

Starting out, try a wide variety of brands.  You may find you like certain colors from one line and other colors from other lines as did the woman I once worked for making jewelry out of mixed media including among other things watercolors, gouaches, ink, and acrylic paint.  We even mixed ink with a water-based high gloss finish to get a shiny black effect on one of her lines of pins and barrettes.

We’d get our supplies all over --- office supply stores like Staples, local art stores, the local college bookstore, Jerry’s Artarama (they have a site plus sell through Amazon) and a local bookstore chain which used to have an extensive array of art supplies.  Online and in store, you can take advantage of sales to try supplies at reasonable prices.  We might have ordered from Dick Blick instead of or in addition to Jerry’s.  Sorry, it’s been nearly more than a decade since I worked for her.

I think the ink was Faber-Castell and some products from Golden. We used some Windsor Newton Pro for brushes if we could find them as they held up well and as well as certain colors in their watercolors and gouaches lines.  We had some from Grumbacher too.  We always went with the more expensive Holbein for blues.  There were some colored pens in use, possibly Prismacolor Premier, as well as Sharpies.

You can use regular copier paper for painting although it won’t hold up against lots of brush strokes in any one spot before the top strands of the paper begin to pill up.  If you’re just experimenting with various techniques and not ready for producing anything to keep/display, it can save money over proper watercolor paper.  That’s what much of the paper we were working with was, copier paper, and the items I have myself have held up for years.

One recommendation from another thread on this forum is to always carry a sketchbook with you (the poster linked to a cool Huffington Post article titled something like 9 reasons to do this).  There are watercolor pencils you could use for your sketches that once home, you would then use water and brushes to make the sketch over into a traditional watercolor painting.  Less messy and involved than carrying paints and water and brushes and a sketchpad all over creation.

To echo Orvell, it’s easy to spend tons of money and get swept up in fancy brands with so-called professional lines.  I learned the opposite from one painter I admire, Frank Frazetta (I’m not a sword & sorcery kind of gal but his work captures movement like almost no one else).  In a biography preface to a book of his work, one visitor to his studio who was hoping for insight into the secret to his success asked him while he was painting what he was using.  Frank replied it was a mickey mouse set which the visitor implied to mean a no name line of artist watercolors until Frank showed him it was actually a Disney Mickey Mouse set of paints for kids.  The art didn't come from a specific brush or paint but from Frank.

[lizzzi]

Great replies. I am going to look in Michael's tomorrow on my way to pick up dog food and groceries. (Consolidating errands to save on gas--very MMM-like.) I think I'd like to buy something in a bricks and mortar store to really see what I am getting, rather than going online.  I like the comment about Frank Frazetta using a kids' paint set. I think I know from playing musical instruments that buying an expensive guitar doesn't make you play better. lol

[Orvell]

If you want additional inspiration, this is one of my favorite artists. He posts frequently and shares a lot of his process and tools!
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/

[Lulee]

I agree, lizzzi, about the value of being able to handle and examine up close something before you buy (as well as commend you on your mustachian grouping of errands).  Michael's always seems to at least offer 50% off one regular priced item in their fliers which helps deflate some of the expense.  Glad to hear you're not prone like I am to upgrade to a more expensive product so I can learn with something that will give me good results or some such silliness
which the logical part of my brain screams at me isn't true even as I talk myself into such nonsense.

Orvell, thanks for the link!  I'm going to spend a lot of time reading his blog, I can tell.  You both might also like http://theartplace.biz/peter-ferber/ who does some amazing work!

FYI, in the Off Topic sub-forum, there's a thread titled "What are you ARTING right now" where people are sharing their art and interesting links.  Everyone is really encouraging and supportive so feel free to post pictures of your projects as well.

[lizzzi]

I'm really enjoying the links people are posting. James Gurney! When I used to go to the dentist in Rhinebeck, NY, the whole office was decorated with Dinotopia. Gurney used to live in Rhinebeck, I believe--maybe still does.

[The Drawing Bird]

Hi lizzzi!

How are your paintings and sketches coming along? 

I was in your shoes about two years ago (just dipping my toes into watercolors).  There's a ton of options out there, and most of them are quite pricey.  I don't know about you, but when I'm using very expensive colors/paper, I feel pressured to make the drawing perfect... in a bad way!  I can't quite relax enough to enjoy the process.  As a result, I experiment with the least expensive materials, only moving up when they are clearly a hindrance.  Here's what I've found so far:

Paper- for pens and pencils, the paper quality doesn't really matter.  Just choose something that you like the look of.  If you're going to add water to it, though, the paper thickness is very important (Lulee, I'm respectfully disagreeing with you).  I know "watercolor paper" is more expensive, but this is the one thing I would not cut corners with.  With thin paper, the surface doesn't stay moist very long, making blending and smooth washes of color almost impossible (because the first dab of color you apply soaks into the paper and won't move).  Light paper also curves and buckles as it dries.  I wouldn't go below 100 lb weight.  Treat yourself (at least once) with a pad of 140 lb watercolor paper that's glued down on the edges (you paint on the top piece as it's secured, then cut it off when you're done).  If you do use lighter paper, then use a bare minimum of water on your brush for less frustration.

As far as ink pens, go ahead and use your Pentels!  If you like the way it feels, then it's a winner.  Be aware, though, of whether or not the ink is water-soluble (will the ink smear when I add water to it?). 

There's a whole world of "watercolor" brushes out there.  Surprisingly, I've found that they're not worth the price (or maybe I'm just not that good of a watercolor artist yet!  Haha).  They're nice brushes, of course, but any brush that can hold some water will do the same job (sumi brushes, makeup brushes, all-purpose painting brushes, etc).

For paint, the brands don't seem to matter for beginner/intermediate painters.  Though I would recommend tube paint, as opposed to dry pan sets.  With pan sets, it takes a while at the beginning to soften up the colors for use, and you can't get nearly as rich/dark of colors.  Tube paints seem to last forever, so don't be put off by how pricey they seem to be.  I bought 0.5 oz tubes of just red/yellow/blue/brown two years ago, painting 2-3 times a week, and they aren't even close to empty.

These things work for me, but they may not for you.  As you're drawing/painting, ask yourself if you're being forced to work harder to make up for your supplies.  Ideally, you don't have to think about your supplies at all- you can get lost in the painting.  Please post the artwork you make- we'd love to see it!

[Lulee]

I think The Drawing Bird has given you lots of great advice.  I hadn’t even remembered that paint comes in anything but tubes outside of children's sets.  Happily, you can when at then end of a tube’s squeeze-ability pry/cut them open and get to the remaining paint (careful if you scrape it out or you might get some of the metal the tube is made out of as we sometimes did).

Cheap copier paper as I suggested isn’t for work you want to keep but for learning on, drafts, and experimenting cheaply AND when you're ready to graduate, the leftovers can be used in your printer so no $ wasted.  Experiment, for example, to see if the ink from the Pentel pens (love these for general use) run if you then watercolor the sketch --- this was a problem at times for us making the jewelry.  See how dry brush technique like Andrew Wyeth used for the Helga series gives you a different look then using a wet brush and if you might have use of it in your work.  Things like that are where it shines as a low cost training ground.

FYI, a rep at a commercial printer once told me that paper could vary in weight by as much as 10% and still be considered to be of a certain poundage.  So the 100 pound watercolor stock could be just 90 pounds, not far from the 80 pound copier paper, which is partly why trying an even heavier stock as The Drawing Bird suggests is a very good idea for “keepable” work.

I wish we’d had the openness of mind of The Drawing Bird about brushes so we could have tried options other than artists brushes.  The cheaper no-name ones from the college bookstore seemed fine for a short while and then their shapes would distort and bristles would fall out or, worse, splay out so we’d have to trim them away to keep them from messing things up.  We tried, I think, to treat them well.  In the end, we went with the named brand ones of the lowest price point just to do our work well enough to sell.

We did find that for small precision fixes to inked areas, we could get better results by using the sharp tip of a pinback to “draw” with.  Cleaned up a lot of raggedy lines that way!

We have a yearly art tour where people open up their studios for a day so you can see their work and talk with them.  If there’s something like this near you, you could pick artists’ brains about materials and techniques and maybe even have some of your work to show them for feedback if they have the time.

[serpentstooth]

YAY ART!
First rule of art: whatever you make shit with will probably work. It's what you do, not what you do it with that is the process of art.
Second rule of art: there is always a level-up in terms of fancy if you want to go there.

I don't draw, but these hold true for most hobbies. I'll add a third: spend some time working with low end materials until you learn what you like (and whether you want to continue!) and develop some skill before upgrading. I've found that's true across every hobby I've tried.

[Goldielocks]

I would get basic water colour paper (it is quite different) and maybe try out 5 water colour pencils to start with.

Good luck

[ariapluscat]

If you doodle or are drawing outside, you might enjoy Sakura/Koi Watercolors Field Sketch.

Starting out, there's no point using expensive materials. I look back with so much regret on the materials I used while learning that would've been better used when I was finishing a more technical project.

If you're doing water color I don't think that printer paper will work (the lb is too low), but if you get decent sketchbook pages those should hold up (even 60 will do in a pinch). Don't bother with a spiral bound. If you can get a stack of wet and dry medium paper, 100lb that's the most versatile as you figure out what you enjoy.

The one limit is that if you're big on color payoff and color steadfastness, go for professional pigments.
If you want a multi use product, for both painting and pen drawing, india ink might be a good material

Art as a hobby is expensive - MMM probably wouldn't approve esp since the product isn't as immediately usable as his woodworking hobby. But once you feel good paper and capture an idea on paper, you're hooked!

[lizzzi]

Hi everyone. I bought some Artist's Loft brand stuff at Michael's, and have really opened up Pandora's box--I love the paint colors from the 28-pan set, but it's like: How do I make brown? How do I get all those different shades of orange in the breast feathers of different robins? How do I paint that toad the dog almost ate last night? And then I go online and start cruising, and find that there is reams of information about how to do that stuff. I can see already that I have got to get better brushes. My set of 10 for $4.99 just started shedding bristles from the first stroke. So I got the 30% off Michaels coupon online, and will be going back later to see what I can do about just one or two better brushes. I guess the best ones are made from weasels. Ha,ha. Weasels. Well, anyway, thanks for all the encouragement and good information. I am so on a roll.

[DeltaBond]

I used to be a traditional artist, I made a little money, I enjoyed it... I ended up getting bored with it, but it took years.  One thing I did, when I was trying out a new medium, I went cheap.  I did a LOT of water color paintings and people were stunned to learn I did them with $1 crayola water colors. 

When I wanted to learn acrylic painting, I made canvases by getting a $10 can of water based white house paint and newspapers - I sprayed the newspapers with water, rolled them up so they wouldn't have creases, then did 2 coats of that cheap house paint.  I bought "Basic" brand acrylics and again, people were shocked I used those materials.

I sold more of the cheap paintings than anything else.  I'm good at composition and I'm good at mixing color.  When you can do that stuff, you can do this hobby for very little money.

[lizzzi]

I am really just playing with the colors--looking at articles and videos on line about how to draw and paint--things aimed at beginners--and I'm just blown away by what you can do and by how fascinating it is. When I walk in the park, it is like all the colors of the leaves etc. are so much more vibrant and in-depth...and I am already considering how to mix paints to get certain shades for certain leaves or whatever. My puppy doesn't let me have just hours and hours to sit and paint, but when I do some dippy little exercise and then look at it the next day, what I love are the things you can do with color, and what it looks like after it dries. "Real" artists might laugh at me ("How do you make brown?" Oh, please...duh...I figured that one out in thirty seconds and one color-mixing article online.) but I have honestly not tried to do drawing or painting since elementary school. It is so totally cool.

[Orvell]

It IS so totally cool! Glad you are having fun with it!
If you want to learn about color theory, I strongly recommend James Gurney's book "Color and Light."
It's a bit pricy, but maybe your library has it? It's hands-down one of the best color theory books out there, as well as very approachable and comprehensible. :)

One of the best things you can do is go to a museum, though. Especially one with impressionist works if color is your joy. Just hang out and study it, look at what's been done, and how it's been done, and try to figure out why it 'works.' Doing "master studies" can be helpful too, as long as you know *why* you are doing them (aka actually trying to learn from copying, not just trying to make a pretty thing).
:)

[lizzzi]

Thanks for the heads up on "Color and Light." I had no idea James Gurney was so famous and successful. I guess if I thought about it at all, I just knew the name as some local guy who painted dinosaurs. I went ahead and bought the book on 'Zon, and just inhaled it in one sitting. For me, who lived and worked in Dutchess and Ulster countys for 25 years, to see paintings of Rhinebeck, Kingston, the Catskills--I mean, he had this painting of a Friendly's restaurant as you would be coming down Washington Ave. from the traffic circle in Kingston...and one of Northern Dutchess Pharmacy in Rhinebeck, with the Beekman Arms in the background. It was like going home for a visit. Anyway, I was a little overwhelmed, but went online and found a basic course on drawing. I just sit here with my number 2 pencil and printer paper and do the exercises. With my watercolors, I am just making swatches, trying little mixes to see what they look like after drying...I can see that I am not really ready to paint anything, (but I will anyway, of course  : D   ).  This is a whole new world--it is like when I go outside, I have never seen it before. And as weird as it seems--I can't analyze this too closely--but when I write a paragraph or play a song on my harp, I seem to have found a doorway to more layers and richness.

[lizzzi]

Should probably make a full confession--I also bought Gurney's book "Imaginative Realism" How to Paint What Doesn't Exist.

This one and "Color and Light" should keep me going for years. I loved his recommendation to make little models out of clay of the aliens, dinosaurs, whatever...that you want to draw. They're called "maquettes." Or if you are doing buildings, you could make a maquette of your city in that other galaxy...or of the starship that gets you there. Love this stuff.

What blows me away is that he juxtaposes this wild, fantasy stuff with the most prosaic everyday pictures. He has a sketch of a strange-looking tree alongside of Thompson pond in Pine Plains, NY, from 1998. Now, my kids went to school in Pine Plains, a village with one traffic light, and a high school that is the only school in the county with its own barn. If he could make the jump from Thompson pond to Dinotopia, there is lots of hope that the rest of us could maybe do something fabulously creative, too. Am I babbling? Sorry. I am just so excited to have discovered art. In a personal sense, I mean.

[DeltaBond]

You're not babbling, you're inspired.  You can also take photos of pretty things and paint them from the photos.  I did that quite a bit.

[Beriberi]

Don't underestimate what professional instruction might be able to help you with.  It might be worth checking out some of the classes on Craftsy.  They offer online art instruction.  There are some free courses, and some free intros, and they have sales all the time. Even at full price, however, they are cheaper than anything else I can find (including community ed, etc.)

[lizzzi]

So I intimidated myself a little by looking at a lot of tutorials online and reading James Gurney's books and looking at his blog. (Joined Craftsy, also.) I just sat and looked at my paints and my new sketchbook and thought that I couldn't possibly do this. I froze up for a couple of days, but walking in the park there was just so much that was calling to me--there are clouds of forget-me-nots across a creek that I'm sure I could paint in a very impressionistic manner--do a grassy green wash, very light, and then just make blobs of  a pretty blue to suggest the flowers. Anyway, I'm a little afraid to try...but I opened my sketchbook yesterday and used my HB pencils and kneaded eraser to draw some plants and a head portrait of my dog, and a sketch of my harp. I put some lines from The Lake Isle of Innisfree in the corners. Like Dr. Johnson's dancing dog or women preachers, it is remarkable not that it's done well, but that it's done at all. I can't believe I am drawing. Thanks for all the wise counsel, MMM friends.

[MonkeyJenga]

I've always been a doodler, and always been dissatisfied when I tried to sketch a person or object from real life. I got Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to improve my skills from "non-existent" to "passable." I highly recommend it. She has a section in the beginning with a recommended list of supplies - you don't need much.

Example of my progress after getting through 1/3 of the book:

Everyone's sharing their various creations lately, so I'm going to get in on this action. From a while ago, but it's the best thing I've ever drawn:



This was my starting point a few months earlier, around the time I decided to learn how to draw:



Those are my attempts at capturing the visage of a real human woman, not a wrinkly confused Shakespearean jester.

[Anatidae V]

This thread has some great pointers and resources! Brilliant...