Exercise:drawing with other coloured media

Developing my thinking from the previous exercises and that distilled from exploring Ben Nicholson I decided to take a slightly different approach to this exercise.

Using acrylic inks (which I have had for a long tie but not really played with much) I loosley drew the chrysanthemum plant heads and some foliage. I paid attention to detail in the form and positioning but stuck to loosely drawn forms. Woebegone at this appalling presentation I then picked up a charcoal stick and started to sketch in the forms of the flowers a little more fully yet still outlines the sprayed the surface to hold the charcoal. I then returned to the ink and loosley blocked in some colour and re drew some forms and shapes of leaves etc.

I'm not sure it qualifies as a good drawing but I really do rather like the effect - the looseness of the ink against the definition of the charcoal makes for interesting viewing, I think. It adds a bit of something extra that makes a pretty mundane subject matter more interesting. I notice I'm more relaxed with charcoal than with ink or paint and yet combining the 2 helped my loosen up with the ink. I'd like to work on this a bit more as my painting is often very 'wooden' and perhaps combining these approaches will help both my painting and my drawing.

I've started to think how these may combine in the future fish drawing as I could see some real value in introducing the fluidity with the fish due to it's nature. I may of course be being way over ambitious!