Perfect partners

Pen, ink and watercolour is one of the most versatile of techniques. It is useful to watercolourists as an extra tool and, for those who prefer drawing, it is a way to work with watercolour painlessly. In this article, I want to look at ways of working with pen and watercolour.

Which comes first, watercolour or ink? The choice is yours; either way works well, although there are differences.

Watercolour

The partnership between line and wash is a balance, where both complement each other. When using watercolour with line, try to keep with transparent colours rather than the opaquer ones, as opaque colour can blur and diminish the effect of line. Avoid heavy use of yellow ochre, cerulean blue, light red, lemon, cadmium yellow and cadmium red, and keep