Seascape Artist

Sunday is Mother’s Day - I went to the local art supply store today at lunch - I bought Dr PH Martin’s Bombay India Ink - two sets of it - lots of colors! I’ve NEVER used India Ink so this will be a learning experience. I’ve done just a touch of reading about it so far.

Wikipedia has a short article about India Ink. What I found the most interesting about this article was that it is now most commonly used for drawing instead of writing and printing. (No the “prison tattoos” part with a sharp sewing pin was NOT attractive to me - I cannot imagine anyone sticking themselves with a pin through wet ink on their skin - HOW do they NOT get blood poisoning and have to have their body parts amputated? - I digress - I dislike needles and poking self with pins is right there with it to me - now back to art & ink resources!)

I much preferred Wikipedia’s article about Pen & Ink - there is quite a lot of history information - some about Hebrew scholars and illuminated bibles of the 9th & 10th century for anyone liking history research - I found it fascinating to find out more about historical calligraphy - I have very childish handwriting - I was never good at Penmanship class - so calligraphy is not something I would probably excel at or even like … I do like doodling with abstract drawing shapes though - that is why I think I will like the india ink - it will be lots of fun to experiment with and see what I can create that is different from what I usually do - keeping an open mind about new art materials keeps creativity flowing at my house.

Mongo’s Ink Log has a lot of info about a lot of brands of India Ink - way over my head since I am so new to it and know nothing - it was helpful but I do not yet understand the terminology - my neighbor bought black india ink for his drawings last week-end (he did not get any colored inks) - I’d never thought about it before but I saw the pretty colors LOL … and I LOVE color … and I have a seascape to create as a gift … so trying something new will be lots of fun for me to do on Mother’s Day.

One neat family - kid activity for use with these inks I found was at Family Fun - Blow Painting - my grandson is coming over tomorrow for awhile … I need straws … he would love doing this! I don’t think I have any newspaper but we could go out into the backyard - but I will have to keep the puppy inside - or the nearly white puppy will be covered in various ink colors! A variation of this would be to use q-tips to paint with as the brush too! …. hmmmm …. I wonder how a seascape created with india ink and q-tips would look? That is a very intriguing idea! Maybe I will try that and find out - if it turns out good .. I will have my gift painting done and ready to dry, mat & frame!

I found an article about suminagashi by Nita Leland - I’d never heard of it and I am not really sure what it actually is even now (I enjoyed her article - she has a nice voice - she has been teaching watercolors for many years - she is interested in lots of things - very interesting place to read) - marbling paper with water & ink somehow - this is not for me - I’d have a real mess and I like the straw or q-tip idea much better than dipping paper into fluid and then letting it dry - perhaps part of my reasoning is because my grandson has been having me do that more or less with his paintings since he was little - they were always dripping wet and needing put on newspaper to dry - until I got the magic watercolor pencils! Much less mess … he likes drawing with them and he does not even want water to put on the drawing many times.

I will have to do a few different searches to discover more info about India Ink - I do not think the search terms I used were very good for the info I was looking for … but it was all worth my time though because I found things I didn’t know I wanted to know about this new-to-me art material until I found & read about them.

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