Et tu hippo (noto)?

What else should you first draw with an ink called Hippo Purple, but a hippo?  Maybe not a hippo that is so serious. . .

This combines some of my favorite things: Rober Oster ink, FPR flex nib, Serendipity Hybrid Pen, and Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.

                                Pen & ink on extra heavy weight 270 gsm mixed media paper

Give Trees a Chance

More mixed media.  The tree is drawn with Birmingham Ink James Salk Serum Umber.  They are such fun inks. I like how this ink goes from a light toffee to a deep dark walnut brown, such a nice range of color.  The background and leaves are watercolor.

                        Pen & ink with watercolor on 5.5 x 8.5 on 140 lbs paper

                          Reference photo: Key West, somewhere by Sunset Key

And here is a little warm up. . .just playing around with puddles of color.

                                     Watercolor on 5.5 x 8.5 on 140 lbs paper

Spring. . . are you coming?

The recent bomb cyclone not withstanding, can Spring be around the corner?  Probably not.  So as we all wait, here is the first in a bunch of Spring-inspired posts.

This is a true mixed media, using watercolor, fountain pen ink, opaque watercolor, and Tombow brush pens. The background is a simple watercolor wash, the body of the butterfly's body and wing veins are Birmingham Lilac Wind ink, the wing cells are Tombow brush pens, and the white dots are Dr. Ph Martin's Bleed Proof White.

          Watercolor + pen & ink on extra heavy weight 270 gsm mixed media paper

Petrified Forest

Another watercolor and ink experiment. Over top the watercolor I laid down fountain pen ink (Schenley Park Thicket Green, Birmingham Pen Co), especially to represent the moss on the petrified trees.  

                        Watercolor and ink 9x12 140 lbs watercolor block