India ink resists

Over in the Mixed Media forum of WetCanvas, our friend Sonia showed us a great tutorial on using gouache as a resist for India Ink. She works in watercolors, and the ink gave her piece a lovely "pop" that we all wanted to learn to do.

Well, I don't work with either watercolors or gouache very often, so I decided to try changing the method slightly so that I could at least give it a go with what I've got. I don't paint like Sonia does either (I'd be embarrassed to even show you a simple house and a tree), so I stuck with geometrics. I'm even slightly challenged with them as you'll see!

Here's what I did:
I used student grade oil pastels and rubbed them into my surface is a sort of spotty manner, so that the diamonds weren't completely solid.


It made a very bright - and unattractive - pattern. Then I sponged black India Ink all over it. The pastels act as a resist, but because I didn't apply them really heavily, the ink soaked into a lot of spots.


Before the ink had a chance to dry completely, I rinsed it off and patted the piece dry with some paper towels. I think I'll have to spray it with an acrylic or varnish to keep the pastels from rubbing off, but it looks a lot better to me. This certainly isn't a "finished" piece, but as a sample, I'm pretty happy with the effect!


Thanks Sonia!


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