Week 5: Ink
Welcome to week 5 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?
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| I love this crow painting! |
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| I love this, found it here. |
Before I began my ink painting adventure, I did a little research. I had to find some ink, obviously. So, to the internet! Who knew there were so many different types of ink? Probably artists that use ink all the time. Well, the two inks that were the most popular, or maybe just easiest to find, were sumi ink and India ink. What's the difference between the two? According to Google (thanks, Google), sumi ink dries matte and India ink looks shiny and plastic-y when dried. I went with sumi ink. Rebecca Johnson used India ink. Look her up on Instagram @rebeccajohnsonartwork to see what she created. She's pretty awesome, you should check her out.
Alright, so, now that I have my ink all picked out, I need to select a paper to use. Paper. Wow. So MANY choices, right? Seriously. I had some cold press watercolor paper, hot press watercolor paper, and some hot press illustration board laying around the house. Alright, so not really just laying around the house - it was put away. I tried all three to see which one I liked the best.
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| Sumi ink and various papers. |
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| Trying out the ink on different papers. |
So, here's my test paintings. The crab is on the illustration board. The squid, can you tell it's a squid? It's on the hot press paper. The crow is on the cold press watercolor paper. These were all just quick little paintings to decide which paper to use. I liked the way the ink turned out on all of them, but I think it flowed the best on the hot press paper - the squid. The cold press was too rough and the illustration board just felt weird. I know, it's not really an explanation, but it just didn't feel right to me. So, I went with the hot press paper.
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| Deciding which paper I like best. |
And here's my final ink painting! It's a dragon.
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| Finished painting - Dragon. |
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| One more picture of my dragon. |
On to rating ink painting...
Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.
Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.
Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.
Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?
Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium
So, for ink painting my rating is: 18
Ease of use: 5
Sumi ink was very easy to use. It's a lot like using watercolor paints, but without all the wait time of watercolors. I found that the ink dried quickly - not so quick that I didn't have time to use it, though. Because of the quick dry time I didn't have to wait long between layering the ink on the paper.
Affordability: 3
This is one of those mediums that you'll have to buy to use. The ink I have is about $10. You can buy pads of paper for anywhere between $8 - $40. You can also get a good set of brushes for as little as $10. So, you're looking at around $30 for basic supplies. Good news, though, the ink is going to last you for a long time. I used very little with my paintings. The brushes will last for many years if you take good care of them. The paper, well, that's where most of your cost comes from.
Accessibility: 5
You can get paper and brushes from any arts and crafts stores. I'm not so sure about the ink being in a craft store. An art store definitely. Also, you can order any of these things online. Amazon is amazing for that.
Fun to Use: 5
I really enjoyed ink painting. I liked the flow of the ink over the paper. Something about it was mesmerizing? Meditative? Relaxing? Whatever the word is, I liked it.
If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...
If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!
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