Earlier this month, I taught a brand new workshop in Florida called “Creating Composite Sketches,” where I shared lots of great information on how to design sketches featuring multiple images on a page. I showed examples of some of my favorite composite sketches and shared helpful tips on page design, borders, lettering, and painting techniques. We did several projects over the course of the two-day class and had lots of fun painting and learning together.
The students’ first assignment was to sketch a collection of items from their purse or art bag. After I helped them get started on their sketches, I dove in and laid out a page of my own as a demonstration for the class. The subject was my Baggallini travel bag with a few of my many travel items exploding out if it. (Or going into it, depending on your point of view!)
This purse has accompanied me on trips all over the US and Europe, everywhere from Maine to Croatia, so I decided it deserved the title of “World Traveler”.
Painting all of my travel essentials, like sunglasses, cell phone, passport, and money, was the easy part of the sketching process. Painting the purse was a bit more challenging, but I figured out a great technique for painting the black and grey pattern on it using two secret weapons…
masking fluid and a ruling pen!
A ruling pen is the perfect tool for applying masking fluid to paper. The adjustment knob allows you to finetune the width of the line, and the masking fluid flows easily from the metal nib. When you’re done, it cleans up with the swipe of a tissue.
(I’ve found that the best ruling pens are the vintage ones found on eBay. The inexpensive new ones sold on Amazon are generally poorly made, have rounded points, and won’t give you a fine line.)
I began painting the purse by applying a light grey base wash, dropping some darker shadow colors into the wet paint while it was still juicy. After that dried, I lightly sketched in a grid of pencil lines to guide me in drawing the pattern with masking fluid.
I thinned the masking fluid with a bit of water, so it would flow easily from the pen, then painted a pattern of V-shaped lines all over the front of the purse.
After the masking fluid was thoroughly dry,
I brushed on a dark blue-black watercolor wash over the entire patterned area.
While the paint was still wet, I lifted a few highlights with a damp brush then let it all dry. The pattern wasn’t perfect – I had a few spots where too much maskoid had flowed off the ruling pen – but I could always touch up some of the boo-boos later on.
After the sketch was completely dry, I used a masking fluid pickup to remove the dried masking.
Finally, I softened the pattern slightly with a damp brush here and there so it wouldn’t look too uniform and hard-edged. Then I touched up a few spots that called for it and painted a bit more shading over the pattern.
The not-too-perfect pattern fits well with the sketchy look of the drawings.
The last step in finishing up the sketch was to paint the banner with watercolor and use a Gelly Roll gel pen to add the title lettering and dotted lines.
Give this masking fluid trick a try the next time you need to paint a two-toned pattern. It works great for creating border designs, too!
5 Comments
What a fun technique. Sounds like a fun day for all. 😉
I see that eBay offers many vintage ruling pens. How do we know which one to buy? Some are from Germany, company is Dietzgen, I think . Please advise
You want one that has sharp tines, with both tines meeting in a perfect point. The ones I use came from my father-in-law, from back in the 40s or 50s. I think they are German-made. The cheaper new ones work okay if you’re not trying to do very fine lines. The tips on them are more rounded than on my antique ones. If you want to mask out really fine lines, though, like whiskers or thin grasses or a pattern like the one shown in the blog post, you need a ruling pen that is very pointed, not rounded. You can turn the adjustment screw to make the tines almost meet – that’s what gives you a narrow line. To cover larger areas, open it up to get a winder line.
When shopping on eBay for one, I’d want to see clear pictures of the pointy end, taken from the side and from the top. The prices on eBay seem to be all over the place, anywhere from $6.00 to $100. I would expect the ones made in Germany to be of decent quality, but I wouldn’t pay more than $15 + shipping. Also, look in antique stores and flea markets, and maybe even on Facebook Marketplace.
I’m going to have to check out that pen and the remover! What a great idea to jump start your creativity!
Leslie…Thank you so much for sharing your ideas and techniques. You are appreciated!
Nancy Hoffman