Here’s a little Experimentation with colored ink – on a base of a brush drawing.

Still want to figure out the best way to color ink illustrations. It’s always too easy to overpower the initial drawing, losing the impact that the black and white has. In a recent ink portrait I did I used Photoshop to add light tones. It somewhat works as the lines still read well, but then the coloring seems indecisive. Well, it also took ages to adjust the tones – it’s tricky when one has a limited range to choose from. There is no nice desaturated orange for example – it would just be brown.

So here is another approach: One color, with little variation – but that one with some oomph! I used some candle wax for the spots that needed to stay clear (good thing they’re always close around Christmas time). This gave me the chance to work more freely.
The only problem: Now I have to spend even more resources on inks by buying all those colors.

“Scarlet Frogs”, colored ink on A4 paper.

The original drawing is available in the shop here:

A detail view.

And another detail of the froggies.

I’m selling the original drawing on my webshop (see above). And I’ve also updated the shop – with an Amsterdam city-view, as well as two more paintings from Kyoto, since the others sold out.