5 Minute Landscape: Water Soluble Pen

Most pens are not waterproof. They bleed in the rain or turn a sky gray when overpainted with watercolor. But pen solubility does not have to be a liability. it can be a feature. After you make a quick pen sketch, stroke your pen lines with water to create a gray wash. Some brands make a blue-gray wash, others neutral or warm gray. Experiment with different brands of pens till you find one that you like.

Pilot Razor Point Pen

Click on the first image to start a step-by-step slideshow.

Draw your landscape with clear deliberate strokes. Use lighter lines in the background to suggest distance.
Draw a frame around the part of the drawing you plan to enhance with tone. This is a good time to think about composition. Avoid putting the center of interest in the center of the drawing.
Use hatch lines to add value to your drawing.
Use a traditional brush or a waterbrush to dissolve the pen lines. Now use the ink that has been transferred to the brush to “paint” in some of the white areas (here cliff faces). Leave some white areas.
Use areas of dense pen (here the closer trees) to provide ink for background areas and the sky. Notice the impact of leaving a little white for the clouds. Again resist the temptation to cover all the background with gray. Painting with ink is fun but it is easy to overdo it.

Tombow Brush Pen

Now let’s try it with a Tombow brush pen. Brush pens have a broad tip  that can easily cover areas with tone. The ink is also water soluble and can be re-worked with a waterbrush. For this demonstration I used two Tombow pens:

  • Tombow Dual Brush Pen N75-Cool Gray 3 – SKU# 56639
  • Tombow Dual Brush Pen N95-Cool Gray 1 – SKU# 56644

Click on the first image to start a step-by-step slideshow.

Draw in the major landscape elements.
Frame part of the drawing to make an interesting composition.
Use a light gray brush pen to add value. Leave some whites.
Use a mid-value brush pen to deepen some foreground values.
Use a waterbrush to blend and paint with some of the ink you have applied. The drawing will be more interesting if you leave some sections as clean penwork and other areas pen blended with water.