Watch a demo on drawing cats from The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.
- 1 min. video (securing ink well)
- 1 min. video (keeping ink fresh)
- 1 min. video (Higgins ink)
- 7 min. video (mixing ink gradients)
- Pen & ink area
- Pen & ink playlist
Sketching techniques using sumi inks for capturing the personality and gesture of the cats in the film are explained, as well as how to build up a range of textures and volumes in the drawings.
Explained in the video is how to build up layers of ink wash gradients to create movement and a range of tones. Demo led by Art Prof Clara Lieu and Teaching Artist Cat Huang.
Video Walkthrough
- Prof Lieu’s technique for pre-mixing ink wash gradients.
- Starting an ink wash drawing with pencil can be problematic as the pencil lines always show later.
- You can sketch more freely with ink wash if you start with an extremely light grey tone and incrementally build toward dark tones.
- Very light grey washes are easy to paint over.
- The Chinese Ink, Silver Black has a subtle pearlescent tone to it.
- Be conscious of how much water is in your brush, will you be doing very wet strokes, or dry strokes?
- Ink wash drawings can feel very fast, often you have to stop sooner than you think you should to keep yourself from overworking a piece.
- Sketch Rice paper is more translucent and buckles more than the Gasen and Torinko paper.
Art Supplies
- Ocean White Kumano Brush
- Rice Paper Sketch Pad
- Gasen Paper
- Torinoko Paper
- Chinese Ink, Silver Black
- Chinese Ink, Ultra Black
- Bristol Board
- Hake Brush
- Pipe Hake Brush
- Bamboo Pen
- Cotton rags
- Little plastic containers
- Fabric to place under the rice paper to prevent bleeding
Materials provided by
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