Vaduz Castle

We let the butler and staff off for the 4th of July weekend and decided to cruise to Lichtenstein for lunch in the Stratos 714. We needed a break, so we stayed a few days. Beer drinking, fine weather and a bit of plein air sketching with ink and watercolor.

When I draw with ink, I almost never use a pencil. I like the challenge of inking directly onto the paper. I seem to be more successful, too, than drawing in a pencil line and then inking.

Today I used PH Martin’s waterproof India ink. It needs some drying time. Fountain pen ink is almost dry as soon as you write a letter, but because of its nature, India ink needs a bit of time is needed. A hair dryer can help. India ink seems to dry more quickly than iron gall.

The goal here? Play with the ink – an ink I haven’t used since who knows when – see how it performs, and work on perspective, too. That meant buildings. Buildings with right angles are fairly easy to sort out, but I thought a combination of curved walls and right angles might be a bit fun. They were. As well, a bit of distance using varying greens to depict the curve of the grassy hill.

I am pretty pleased with this. Ink first, then color and dry and color and dry and then more color. I had a lot of fun trying to get the slightly uneven rows of stone in the round tower depicted somwhat realistically.