The Pintailed Duck WIP ~ by Shari

Have been wondering what I could contribute to the wonderful world of Ink painting and Drawing? I seem to be best at WIP's, so may I present to you~

This is one of my Duck photographs and it is of a Pintail duck. This painting will be my more traditional Pen & Ink with watercolor pencil wash.

Took me a few days to roughly pencil it in.

Find that it is better to put the Ink down first, then add the color. Tip: Ink goes on easier straight to the paper, so you should do that first if you can.

You can also see areas that I just started adding color, like I would with Traditional water color, working from light to dark.

I must subconsciously like stripes... was trying to get away from Cat fur stripes but instead... I am painting Duck feather stripes. LOL And this Duck as thousands of them.

Here you can see how I am rough inking in the Ducks head. These are the first layers of feathers. I will be doing 4 to 6 layers of ink on the head alone.

For a comerical interruption...... My view from my Art desk.

Working on the ducks head, adding more ink and some color, making sure to put my Brush & Ink strokes in the direction the feathers lay. First layer of color added to the beak.

Still inking away at all the millions of stripes... yes.. I do believe it feels like they have multiplied from the thousands I previously said. LOL
Right now I am just doing the first layer of ink, once I have the duck totally striped in.. will go back and darken and add highlights.
Sooner or later I will also have to think about what I am going to do with the water part of the painting.

Started adding the first layers of color for the water on the far side of the duck and have been inking all those tiny little stripes. I need to do two more layers of color on the water, also decided not to do the water like it is in my photo. Want something a bit more blue/ green and darker.

Am starting to make some headway. Did the first wash of color for the reflection and the first layer of color for the water in the front. Worked on the Duck's feathers a bit more.

Added the third layer of color to the water, will need to work on the reflection a little more. Have added some more details to the bigger feathers but still have more to do on the striped feathers and the Duck's head.

The finish!

For some reason the scanner lightened the water despite the adjustments I made and doesn't show the green as well but I am happy with the results.

This painting is about 70% ink, the rest a watercolor pencil wash, I find that these two mediums can be married together quite nicely. The paper I have used is "Aquella Fabriano Artistico Bright White hot press Watercolor Paper". Is the only paper I have found that can take the many layers of Ink and wash I tend to do on my paintings.

Written and presented by Shari.