Experimenting with Inktense

This is just the beginning of my journey with Inktense. I am just starting to see  the possibilites of what can be done with this material. I had bought a set a few years back, looked at the limited colors in the 12 pack and played a little bit with it before setting it aside. I substitute teach so I have different times with no students so I wanted to have something small that I could bring with to work on. I had taken acrylics in a small sealed palette with cups, but I wanted something smaller and easier to take with in odd places.

So, I dug out my Inktense pencils. I had thought of getting rid of them before, but because they were pricey, I hung on to them. I am glad that I did! Even though it felt like limited colors originally, I found that I could blend and layer to get the shades I wanted. I eventually did buy the larger tin of 24 and notice colors in one of the online stores that I want to pick up to compliment my set.

Disclaimer - My creations now are experiments. More developed artwork will come. I started with bookmarks since they are small. I can use a heavy weight paper of different textures to see what I like. I have seen online about using them different ways but most roads lead to Pinterest collections. I wanted to see actual artists. So, instead of wading through those sites, I wanted to add in the blog some of my own things. Most are experiments, so don't expect big things yet - those will come.

So, there is drawing with the pencils themselves. You can leave them dry - right out of the pencil,  but since I use a textured paper I did not get anything smooth. It was a lumpy coloring. It would have been different on a hot press paper.  I really wanted it to look like the ink it was. I found I could draw out a design and color it in. It did not even need to be a solid thick color to begin with. When coloring, I took into account what areas I wanted to have lighter and either left that area white for another time or just had my coloring lighter. There are light colors but they do not always go over a darker color like acrylic paint might. It seems to be a mix of watercolor and acrylic methods. With using these pencils you have 2 choices. You can do a solid color (as thin or thick as you like) and then paint over it with water or you can use the pencils and make blends of colors and go over that. It really does feel like you can be creative with how you do your pictures. When I had a color/area that I liked I would paint it with water and let it dry. I would not  dampen touching areas at the same time. By waiting for the one section to dry before coloring or  wetting the next you have control over bleeding. You can even color over an area that you have already colored and dampened to get the shade or intensity and depth that you were intending. Another way of working is to dip the pencils themselves in water and apply it to the paper while still wet.

I have been doing bookmarks since the small pieces give me a chance to experiment with how they work. I have colored and painted water over both sides but will test it also. I want to make sure that all inktense has been dampened and is permanent because I would hate to use it and have unset ink on the pages. I might also laminate it to seal it in but it does not need to be. I have read that varnishing is iffy but that is a future experiment also.

Inktense is supposed to work well as a multimedia material. I wanted to see what that meant by trying out some different things. I have some pictures that I did using the water soluable pencils. They have been drawn then  using a brush with water, blend the drawn and colored in areas so you have control over your light and dark values. Because it is a graphite? it tends to be a graytone picture. Some things work well with that material as it is, but other pictures may have so many details that it ends up mushed together. I used some Inktense accents on some of my pictures to see if it would perk them up. I think it was a big improvement. I had pictures that I was ready to throw out and felt now that some were salvagable.  The issue may come up that when originally drawn with the water soluable pencils that not all of it  was dissolved at that time and maybe is reactivated or something when you use water to activate the Inktense. I did not have much mushing, but it is something to watch for and consider.

Purple Iris - Pencil wash drawing
colorized with Inktense

Before Iris - pencil wash drawing

Schoolhouse - experiment - watersoluable pencil
wash drawings colorized with Inktense

Yellow and Blue Sunflowers - multimedia
acrylic paint on paper with Inktense accents
and dimentional fabric paint

Landscape Experiment with Inktense pencils on light
blue acrylic paint base

One of my latest experiments is with acrylic paint. Online there is talk where you can do it over an acrylic painting (but can't do acrylic on top of Inktense). There are a lot of variables to this method which each artist will have to experiment with. One is whether you are painting on paper or primed canvas. Both are affected differently. Another thing is how many coats of acrylic are on before you add the Inktense. If it is even a couple of coats it gets to be more plastic. Sometimes the color will ball up, sometimes you can wipe some of it off even after it has been on it for a while. I added details with the pencils on an abstract and it came out light (the staining), and when I did a landscape could scratch in for details. I think there is a lot of variation, textures and experiments that will come with working with the material.

I know even for myself, I am just scratching the surface. There are a lot of possiblilities using the pencils. Using the blocks, fabric applications, and even printmaking open up a whole new world. It seems like with the drawing that the materials seem to last for quite a while too so that is a bonus.