WINDEX

I said I was going to do it, and I did it.

A few pages ago, I mused about what might happen if you spray windex onto your paper.  The drawing above is the result.  I first did a quick drawing using the 36 Poetic Immortals as inspiration.  I used a water soluble pen, which was covered here.    And then I sprayed windex on the drawing.  See Draw In Water.

Now, I have no idea if it was windex that promoted the effect.  The same effect might have been achieved with water.  Nevertheless, I was shocked at what quickly happened.  The lines immediately dissolved.  And then I quit spraying before the whole thing turned to mud.  The completion of the forms is still visible.

After the windex dried, I applied watercolor tones in my usual manner.  While all of this is fun, this is getting kind of artsy.  Which we all know is bad.  You certainly don’t have to use windex to get a right and proper, hard working, holistic, transparent drawing.  Are these pages going to devolve to nothing but technique?  No way!

This is another installment in, let’s call it, Water Soluble Transparency.  Robert wrote in to say that water soluble pencils can be applied to the paper dry, and then a wash can be applied which blurs the line and darkens the tone.  He is absolutely correct, and that was addressed in the first Water Soluble Transparency page, Water Soluble Pencils.

So I guess the lesson here is, watch out what you say you are going to do, as you just might do it.