This morning, I decided to use Distress Inks to colour a 20cm x 20cm piece of smooth heavyweight cartridge paper and then to draw upon it. I also recorded all of this process as a youtube video (see below).

The paper is a bit more coloured than in this photo – the camera washed the colours out a bit. I will scan it in before I do anything else with this drawing for sure.

It’s always so nice to draw on a coloured background. White is such a stark colour, but a necessary one for so much of my work.

I just wanted to draw for the joy of drawing this morning. I had no fixed idea of what I was going to do or motifs and patterns I wanted to use.

Now, I have a drawing with a background colour that I’d like to add more colour to. That gives me the opportunity to use Distress Inks a bit like watercolours. And as blues form the background, I can use a monochrome palette of some of the blues I used – Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peacock Feathers and a touch of Evergreen Bough (I know, it’s a green, but it is a blue-green!).

Here’s the youtube video for today