Ink Wash - How to Paint with Ink

Did you know there's more to applying ink than just using an ink pen to apply it to the surface? In fact, we can use ink in its pure form right from the bottle, thinned with water, to use ink more like watercolor. This process is called ink wash, and in this lesson we're going to go through the process of creating an ink wash that I eventually used for an underpainting for colored pencil applications. Here's a look at an ink wash that I created of two cherries for the course Subjects with Pen and Ink. You can see how you can create a full range of value by layering light applications of ink first, followed by progressively darker applications of ink. Now, of course, you can use the process of ink wash in conjunction of adding lines with pen to create an interesting image. This is simply a process of thinning the ink to create different values. Now, for this demonstration, I'll be working on Arches 140 pound hot press watercolor paper. I'll also be using Liquitex carbon black acrylic based ink. The blacker the ink that you use, the better. And I'll also be using a Grumbacher golden edge watercolor brush that gives me nice stability with my applications. Now, an ink wash image may start like any other image that you may create, like a traditional drawing. In this case, I'm starting with a graphite drawing using just HB graphite. I'm concentrating only on the contour lines, which is just another name for outlines. I'm not going to add any shading with the pencil since all of our shading and value range will be developed by adding the ink wash. My contour line drawing starts very light with light pressure, but as I get more confident with the locations of the features of the subject, I progressively add a little bit more pressure on the pencil, making more defined lines. If you wish, you can also define areas of shadow or contrast that you see before lightly erasing the pencil sketch using a Now we're ready for ink wash applications. We'll start here on a paper palette, just putting a drop of ink. And you can see my palette is dripping down towards me because I'm working on a tilted drafting surface. So I'll put a couple of erasers underneath my paper palette here to keep the ink a little bit more stable. Then all we need to do is add a little bit of water to the ink, thinning it out. I'm using a lot of water here in the early stages since I'm going to start with light applications. Now I'll start on the first blueberry, adding our light application of ink. And then progressively we can add darker applications by simply using less water. Now it might be helpful to have a test strip of paper before you go to your final surface. Sometimes you need to know exactly what value you're creating before you go to the final surface. So having a test strip of paper is pretty handy. Now what you'll notice is when I apply the ink, it's very dark initially, but it slowly dries to a lighter value. This means that you'll progressively need to go back over the top of your applications, gradually making the values darker. This is an advantage, of course, because you don't want to go too dark too quickly with any image that you create. So it gives you some freedom to gradually build up the range of value that you need. Now value is the darkness or lightness of color. It's one of the seven elements of art, and in my opinion it's the most important element of art. We want to create a full range of value in every piece of art we create, no matter what the medium is. This means that we need to have darkest darks, the lightest lights, and all the different values of gray in between in order to create a realistic image. When we create an ink wash image, we should think in terms of watercolor. And just like with watercolor, we start with light applications and progressively add darker applications or more intense applications over the top. Now with ink wash, it's important to allow the ink to dry between each layer. This ink will dry very quickly in a matter of minutes, so you don't have to wait very long. By applying wet applications over the top of dry ones, we have more control over the medium. But of course, in the time where the ink is still wet on the surface, you can add additional water and move it around and control it, just like you Here you can see how much the ink wash is similar to watercolor painting. You can see that I have control over moving the medium around while it's still wet. And just like with watercolor painting, it's important to tape down your surface. While we use less water with ink wash, you might still see some buckling of the paper, even when working on a watercolor paper that's water absorbent. Taping your surface down will help alleviate that to a certain degree. And while ink wash will dry very quickly compared to traditional watercolor, you can still use a hairdryer to speed up the drying time in between layers if you prefer. You'll notice that I'm bouncing around in this image, allowing some of my applications to dry before revisiting them, making some of the shadows darker. Here you can see I applied a very strong application, but I'm going back with a little bit of water to move that application around, creating a lighter value and also changing the shape. I typically prefer to use round brushes to apply ink wash. However, you can use any shape of brush that you prefer. It is important, however, to use a brush that's compatible with watercolor, since the behavior of this medium is so similar to watercolor. Now I'm using the same size of brush for this entire ink wash image, a number six round brush by Grumbacher. But you can use smaller brushes if you prefer, or larger ones. The smaller brushes, of course, will allow you to get more precise details, while the larger brushes will cover more of the surface area. At this point, I'm going back and broadening the range of value even further. I'm concentrating now on the darkest values that I see within the image. But even still, when I add these darker values, you'll see that they progressively fade and get lighter. So I have to keep going over these areas in order to create the range of value that's necessary to make this image look complete. Here again, I'm using a bit of water to thin what I have on the surface and move it around. You have to do this fairly quickly because the ink dries so quickly. I'll continue to work on creating that cast shadow, not only creating the illusion of form, but also the illusion of the light source within the scene. Perhaps you figured this one out already, but ink wash is very permanent. After all, it is ink. So once it is dry, it is in its place forever. Unlike watercolor, we can't go back with alcohol or water and lift the ink. That's why it's important to work slowly and cautiously as you gradually build that range of value. Here I'm going over with a light glaze of the ink wash. You can see that I can just barely adjust the values that are there, making them slightly darker. I like to reserve this part of the process to the very end. So I concentrate on higher contrast areas initially and then broaden the range of value, making the values dark where they need to be. And then lastly, go over these applications with light washes, making some of the middle values a little stronger. After the ink has dried completely, we can use a kneaded eraser to erase all of the visible graphite lines that may remain, leaving just the ink on the surface. And here's the finished ink wash image, which can stand on its own as a finished piece of art. However, for this piece, I decided to go back over the top of the ink wash, using it as an underpainting to apply colored pencils. Now, this is part of the course Colored Pencils Plus, where we cover combining colored pencils with a variety of different media, including ink, as you can see here. The ink wash works as an underpainting, developing the values while adding the colored pencil adds the color. And here's a look at the final image, ink wash and colored pencil applications combined. So there you have it, a quick look at creating an ink wash image. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you were able to pick up a couple of things here and there. Now, in this video, I shared a couple of clips from some of the courses that we offer over at the virtualinstructor.com. I'll leave links in the description below if you want to check out those specific courses. But all of our courses, all of our live classes, absolutely everything we offer is included in the membership program. 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