Painted on Arches torchon (rough) 300 gram paper with Cotman watercolors. After it was painted I stroke the edges with a nib pen and manuscript drawing ink. I’d love to experiment with putting the ink in first but I’m having a hard time finding waterproof ink.

Just playing with the hake brush that came by mail today. What better way to test it than in a Sumi-e style painting.

The goat hairs react differently than the brushes I’m used to but it gets some cool effects and packs a lot of color. I think I like it. Now I have to see how it can integrate in my workflow.

My website got featured on http://bestwebgallery.com/ on Friday and I had a ton of visitors over the weekend. As such I felt obligated to post something new. So here it is and thank you to bestwebgallery.

After a lazy Sunday I just had to splash some paint around. And while spring is not quite here yet it had to be colorful.

I took a lot of “creative freedom” in this painting of a statue in the garden of the Villa Borghese. In Rome all trees are evergreens but I wanted to experiment with fall colors so… I did.  You can see the true colors in this photo.

For the staue itself I haven’t decided yet if  I’ll color the it or leave just the ink outlines.

After working mainly with ink in 2008 I decided for the new year to experiment with some color. After some thought i chose watercolors. I just love the textures and the way the colors mix on the paper.

Another thing i like is the way the whole process is so unpredictable. The ink runs, colors blend, washes fade when they dry. Not to talk about splashes and other totally random techniques. This is my very first watercolor in a long long time so I’m surprised of how nice it turned out.

I love the rounded corners, the covers and the yellow tint of the moleskine but I have to say for ink work it’s not that good.

The pages are very thin and the ink bleeds to the other side. That means you have to use every other page and put a sheet of white paper between the pages when you scan.

The watercolor moleskine is nice but a tad small (there may be another size, I don’t know). The one I love most is the Japanese album… that one is just too cool.

There’s something fascinating about a very old olive tree. The way the trunk separates and intertwines, the big holes and chunky roots. I first sow this in on my vacation in Corfu where you can find trees up to 400 years old.  Because it’s a fast growing tree almost everywhere else in Greece the trees are not let to live that long, they’re replanted every decade or so to make it easier to pick the olives.

The pinkish hue is actually yellowish from the moleskine. The firs time i used ink on this… an probablty the last.

The watercolor is in fact watercolor (water soluble) pencils. After laying the color of the page I smudged it with a wet brush. All the coloring is just 5 minutes work…