venice with inktense
Can you use Derwent Inktense pencils and blocks on canvases…?
Answer…YES you can! The brilliant thing with Inktense is that they not only have masses of pigment which is released when you add water - but they dry permanently and can be used on a canvas with acrylic paint. You could also use them to sketch up an oil painting, though once the oil paint is dry, you can’t work on top and expect the permanency you can achieve with acrylics.
I’ve used both Inktense pencils and blocks for several years now. I began on paper, drawing and then adding water. I took three colours of Inktense pencils (Willow, Deep Indigo and Bark) with me to Italy one year and used them on top of my gessoed sketchbook pages - three was enough to get some lovely effects - see picture below drawn whilst we sat in a café outside the Uffizi Galleri…
Then I tried them on fabric - works wonderfully, as long as you make sure that you dissolve all the pencil or blocks in water - otherwise they disappear in the wash.
But mostly I love them on canvas. I use a lot of surface texture in my painting and sketching up with an Inktense block onto wet canvas is delicious. They bleed and spread and add their colour to the paint causing unusual marks that you can’t get with just paint. They come in 72 different colours - I’ve got the whole lot (of course!!), and the pencils are great for line work and the blocks for uneven surfaces, or more watercoloury effects.
I painted this painting of our youngest daughter, Gabbie a few years ago, and used a lot of Inktense block (Bark) in it. The lines and the shadows and reflections in the water were drawn in Inktense and even the lines around Gabbie. I can really recommend them. There are sets but I prefer the inbetween shades like Dusky Purple, Iron Green, Saddle Brown and Mustard. The way they drip down the painting into the texture I’ve glued on (corrugated cardboard, old wallpaper, etc.) gives me such a rush! /jacqui x
