Dip Pen and Watercolor

 Recently I decided to try using a dip pen to do the line work on a line and wash painting.  I wanted to see if a dip pen might put some more irregularity in my line work.  I also worked a bit larger and with more detail on this one.  I also used cold press paper instead of the usual hot press paper I use, I did this for two reasons, one because I accidentally ordered cold press and two because I wanted to see how the watercolor acted on cold press as opposed to hot press.  Using cold press however was difficult with the dip pen, the extra texture caused a lot of interference with pen movement but I suppose that resulted in even more irregularity.  

The subject is an abandoned 1963 Chevy C10 fleetside pickup.  The truck is from a reference photo I took in a fairly remote rural Utah town, the landscape around it was developed from my imagination, or maybe you could call it muscle memory from all the drawing and painting I've done in the past.

I decided the line work was good enough and complete enough to scan it and offer it as a pen drawing print.

"Abandoned 1963 Chevy C10 Pickup Pen Dwg"

After the line work I applied color using Holbien watercolor paint.  I can't say I noticed much difference between using hot press or cold press paper while applying the watercolor washes but that's probably because I'm not really a watercolorist and don't know how to take advantage of cold press paper.  The original is available in my Etsy store.

"Abandoned 1963 Chevy C10 Pickup" pen and watercolor 11" X 14"

Well, I still have two full watercolor blocks of this cold press paper, I'm definitely not going to let them go to waste, however I'm not going to use a dip pen on them either. I'm already working on another line and wash painting using my usual Faber Castell fiber pens and they handle the cold press paper much better, though I do think the cold press texture is wearing them down much faster.