- Hi, I'm Kath McCauley.

This is Pocket Sketching.

The biggest thing behind this whole thing is a water soluble pen.

So let me show you a little bit about what's coming up with a water soluble pen.

As in, how do you control it?

Is this really a sketch?

Really?

Do I really want to make you think this is a sketch?

This isn't a sketch, not until you add water, but when you have water, suddenly things appear.

But when do you add it?

That's what we're gonna be discovering.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided by Sedona Hypnosis LLC, healing your past, creating your future.

Muriel Walsh Estate Sales, representing people is our business, and by viewers like you.

- Since it's really the basis of everything I've done so far in Pocket Sketching, what about the soluble pen and how do you control it?

I have people who constantly have problems with it and it's just a matter of, it's like playing with clouds, you've gotta experiment.

But I want you to see a couple things to sort of see a bit of the difference.

This is the water soluble pen without water.

It does what a ball point pen will do.

Very much just exactly like a ball point.

It used to be a technical pen.

Add water, and this is the difference.

Where you see the big differences, we have carefully used water.

If a part is good, like the guy's head turned out really well.

He didn't have a goatee, that was an accident.

It ran, but on a guy, it was okay.

Next to it, if I had wet those lines in his neck, that would've also bloomed out and it would've ruined the whole head.

If I'd wet the lines in the ear, that would've done the same thing.

The top skull has multiple lines.

The last one is the one I wet, the back of the the neck and coming down the back, there are gobs of lines, but when you get it right, you can fortify that line by going over the same line again.

And that's the one you pull away to make the wash.

Remember, you can do everything Ansel Adams did in photography, but you can do it with different shades going through gray.

Now there are mistakes in here.

There are quite a few, but you're not gonna see 'em.

This leg was originally here.

It didn't work because there was no place for the foot, so that had to be changed.

You don't see that because this line's reinforced and pulled away.

The correction is the one you're gonna see.

Now, another way it's hidden, it's a good knee.

Reinforce it.

This is a pretty good foot.

You're not gonna notice the mess over here.

It's all playing with your eyes.

You got to either make corrections, not make corrections, play with it, watch what you're doing.

You can make tremendous differences.

Now let's show you a little bit about how the line works because this is the basis of everything.

Let's see if I can do, oh, just a little bit of a sketch.

Let's try.

Okay, this is kind of easy, a mountain.

This is supposed to be shadows, okay?

Put the lid on the pen.

Now, when you add water, what happens?

By the way, how old can this sketch be?

Let me get these out of the way 'cause I'll bring them up in a few minutes.

How old can this sketch be?

Oh, up to 10 years.

When I add water, if I go over it fast, the lines stay.

If at the moment I wet it I wiggle the brush, the lines go into solution.

So if you want a clean wash like this, a wash is pigment that has been suspended in water.

You wanna clean wash?

You've gotta wiggle the brush.

If you'd want the line to stay, go over it fast.

Now there were lines here and I could do that again.

This is a hard one to get into, so I'm gonna put sort of a foothill down here.

There you go.

Okay, I don't want this to show up really, really, really distinctly.

Notice I'm wiggling the brush as I wet it, hence it goes into a wash.

Doesn't stay as a line.

Now of course, if I wanna change it even more, I can go like that.

This is a lighter hand mixing it in.

You can move it to just about any, oh, that's another one.

I didn't mention that.

Here we go.

Can you move that line and use it someplace else?

Yeah.

Pick it up, put it someplace else.

This is what I do when I call it a borrow pit.

Put ink at the top of the page, which is not, this is a four by six inch pad, standard framing.

I'm sorry, four by six and a half.

Standard framing is four by six.

Anything in that last half inch is not gonna show up in a standard frame.

Try to work in standard frames, they're inexpensive.

Custom frames are really expensive.

So if I wanted to transfer this from one place to another, there it is.

See the transfer, pick it up, put it someplace else.

How long is this line good?

At least 10 years before you hit it.

This means you can sketch someplace and finish it later.

The amount of things you can do are really amazing.

Now when do you add color?

If you're adding color to a line, you do it at the same time you hit the line.

I'm gonna put a fortified line here and I want to add color, and there's gonna be another one coming up after this.

I want to add color.

I'm gonna pick something pretty light, but I want you to be able to see it.

I'm sure you can see this.

Okay, I want to have this go right, there it goes.

I'm wetting the line and adding color at the same time.

Notice what the line does.

It comes into the color, gives you the shading.

When is this important?

Let's say I want something that's shaded out like this and I want a side to have shadows.

Oh, as long as it's wet, I can do things to it.

I can move it, I can play with it.

I can change it, bring it out.

Probably need to fortify that with more ink.

Is there any ink left up here?

If the ink has already been used, it won't pick up again.

But I just picked a little bit up to darken that a hair and make it look like it oughta be there.

There's so many things you can do with this when you play.

It's really quite amazing.

And yeah, there you go.

I got another form behind this form.

Anything you can do with watercolor, you can do with the line, and the line is an introduction into watercolor because it runs like watercolor.

The color of it is basically pains gray.

A very favorite color with watercolorists.

Incidentally right in here, probably getting a bloom, and it'll feather out into this area, but it happens slowly.

That one's working.

That's a bloom, and that's where you have water next to pigment.

The water spreads, picks up the pigment, and makes this little edge, which is really fun to play with when you learn how to control it.

It's actually happening along this whole line, but it won't be finished until this is dry.

Now let's say I have a line and I don't want it.

Let's see if I have another piece of paper, then I'd be tearing these out.

I usually don't, but I don't wanna just put it face down.

What I didn't tell you is I'm using the back of the paper.

I've used the other side.

Yes, you can use both sides of watercolor paper.

I mean, hey, this is not expensive, but if you get to big watercolor paper, it is expensive.

And when you get a big sheet of watercolor paper, it's very hard to put anything on it because you know how much it costs.

If you're using something this inexpensive, you can burn through the pads and you can burn through the pens.

They're inexpensive.

So I like to say they're cheap.

You can do all kinds of things.

Now let's say I had an edge.

I'm gonna do a mountain again.

I've got an edge of a mountain and I don't want this line to show as the edge of the mountains.

What am I gonna do with it?

How do I get rid of it?

I could do it this way.

It's awkward, let me turn it a tad.

This is easy.

Guess who just made the ink for clouds?

Yep.

Here come clouds.

Incidentally, when it first comes up, it looks like a forest fire.

You want that effect?

Let it bloom right up and it'll make what looks like a forest fire.

Come across, and then I get a really funny question from people.

How do you make gray?

I wanna say, duh.

Really?

How do you make gray?

It's called the pen.

It's pains gray, it's automatically a gray and you wanna make more gray, go ahead put a borrow pit up here and you get a soft gray.

This is how you also get things like changes in the sky without lines in the sky, 'cause remember, that's gonna be out of the frame.

There you go, now mix that in.

Mix that in any way you want.

Want to add color?

If you want to add color and you want it to look natural, do it when everything is wet.

So I want to add some colored clouds.

Since people ask, ultra marine blue, alizarin crimson should give me a pretty decent purple if I want purple in the clouds.

Now if I put this up here, it's gonna have a hard edge.

If I put it in here, it's gonna flow.

And if I don't go up and grab that pretty fast, it's still gonna have a hard edge.

The hard edge is tough in the sky, it just doesn't fit.

There you go.

If I want a gray, another gray and people do.

Super source of gray, ultra marine blue, burnt sienna or burnt umber.

This is burnt sienna.

See the gray?

That is a warm gray.

Now add more blue, it's a cold gray, so you can go either way on this.

It's one of your easiest ways to get gray.

If you have a brown and a blue, put 'em together.

Now, I wanna make this work more water, but let's get back to the pen and what it does 'cause that's an interesting texture.

Am I gonna like it?

I don't know.

But if I don't like it, it's okay.

I'm learning.

Every time I do something I'm learning.

That's important.

I bet that turns out really well.

I'm gonna be careful in pulling it out 'cause I don't want to mess it up.

I want it to keep flowing just the way it's flowing.

We'll look later and see if it's any good.

Let's get back to the line.

If you're working with a ball point, this took a long time.

This was a friend in Tucson.

Any mistake is gonna be there and cannot be removed.

Like this vertical line right behind the edge of his face, like the corrective line in the bottom of the face.

Try to take it away, but this is called, let's see if I can find.

Hatching goes one direction, cross-hatching goes two directions.

And the way the line drawings were handled with permanent ink is cross-hatching and hatching.

So there's a lot of time spent getting the lights and the darks in this.

This one on the other hand was done in minutes.

You've seen it before and on top of that, I was able to make corrections.

Now, something I can show you, this is an old sketch.

This is probably about four years old, probably and I happen to really like the sketch.

But is there a line that was never touched right down here?

See that run?

Four year old sketch?

I can still use that sketch.

I can still change that sketch with the ink that's already on here.

This is unbelievably flexible.

You can do all kinds of things.

Notice he's got lots of lines in his hair, but you don't particularly notice it because you're distracted by the face.

You go there.

The hands may not be too good, you're distracted by the face.

The face is good and that brow was corrected.

He has very prominent eyebrows, so it was corrected to bring those eyebrows out in the final sketch.

High contrast, you're gonna go right there.

You're gonna see that immediately.

Plus it's a human figure, you're gonna look at it anyway.

People have a problem big time with the line invading.

First I wanna show you the line invading, then I'll come back and show you how to avoid it.

I set this up in advance.

Okay, I want skin color.

This is a head that's a head, that's got hair.

Did it rather fast and it's dry.

Oh, that's another thing.

Once you've wet a line and it's dry, it's probably never gonna go anywhere.

See, that's not gonna go anywhere.

But when I come over here and I want skin color, two colors that make it pretty easily, yellow ochre, and I tell people, put this on the lid of the box because that's where you're gonna find out whether it works or not, and a bit of a alizarin crimson.

Okay, rinse out the brush, pick it back up.

There's water in the brush, pick it up, it'll be dilute.

And I'm gonna put it in this one where you've seen that the line doesn't invade, that finally did a little bit.

I've got a ton of water cause it's quite a wet climate, but I can get skin color on that one.

Now, come over to this one and see what happens.

You really have to plan ahead.

This is a little bit yellower than I want.

More skin color.

Okay, this is my head.

I'm gonna put it in here and I get a gray face.

A totally gray face, that's not what I wanted.

I want it to come out sort of like that instead.

So if you wet the line and pull it away, let's just sort of set that one up again.

I need a piece of paper.

Got it.

You know you're gonna want a light color and you want an outline.

Yeah, that'll do.

There you go.

Before you use a whole lot of water, there you go.

Pull the line away before you try to put the color in, this is early in the sketch.

Very early.

Get rid of this.

Get rid of those lines that are gonna flow.

Come around here, get rid of the lines that are gonna flow.

Fudge 'em into the background so they look natural.

Now, you're not going to have the line around to invade when it's dry.

When it's dry, it's pretty well stabilized and you can come back in with your color and you'll have clean color.

Another way to have clean color is probably just not use the line, but a faint line as in.

I need to get the pen down at an angle.

Real low angle on the pen.

Very thin line or a dashed line so that you know where it's gonna be, but it's not a heavy line that's gonna run into things.

Now because that is a problem, I brought an example, and this is another thing I guess I should show you.

This is an old brush.

Old brushes lose their fine tip.

I'm gonna put this in a way.

I think the other one I have with me has a really fine tip on it.

I go through probably three brushes in a year.

That's not much.

Yeah, that's got a beautiful tip.

You can see it.

And I meant to be using it and just, I'll pick up any brush that's at hand really.

Now, the one that's difficult to work with because I know it invades, what am I gonna do with this?

I wanna put color in this guy's hat.

Gonna come here and pull the line and his skin into the background.

Now see where that line went?

And it's also gonna help show him off coming all the way around.

Now, pull it into the background.

Go ahead and wiggle on the lines to turn them into a wash, instead of into lines and wait for that to dry before coming back for the color here and the color on his hat.

If there's a fine line in the way that's really gonna be in the way, it's okay to have shadow here.

So gonna have shadow there, but not in the tiny bit.

Wet it, that will stabilize it.

Wet it with the tip of the brush, that'll stabilize it.

Then when you come back in, you can come in with your color.

Over in here.

Oh, brush strokes.

I didn't even start to show you brush strokes.

Let me show you different brush strokes because it's part of this.

Here's the tip of the brush.

Little tiny fine lines, better get more colors so you can really see it.

And I'll use something that's pretty dark.

The tip of the brush.

Okay, the side of the brush goes much faster.

Probably the only thing you don't do with a brush, if you really like the brush, you don't shove it that way 'cause that really puts, and you try not to use it on a really rough, rough surface.

They'll wear out faster.

You see the different textures from brush strokes?

If you get a water soluble pen, play with it.

Find all the things it'll do.

Like there's a trunk.

Now, what if I had.

There's another one, there's another one.

What about others?

Could there be others?

Of course there could.

Would they be the same color?

Not necessarily.

It ain't necessarily true.

Here comes another one.

How about another one over there?

They can be different colors.

You think of them as just a few colors.

These lines up here in the top?

How do they make trees?

Watch that happen.

Here's another one.

Now, I'm letting some of them stay.

Some of them are going into washes.

They're basically doing it on their own.

When do you add color?

When you wet the line.

Just sort of a quick review here.

The viewer, if they see some color will think they all have color.

That's one of the really fun things.

If one thing is good, the viewer thinks other things like it are good.

If the upper part of this body turns out well, you will be more inclined to thinking that these legs are right.

They're out of proportion.

If I don't like the legs as they are, is it possible to bring 'em out farther to get the proportions right?

Why not?

That's gonna work better.

See that change?

Now what am I gonna do with the bad one?

Get rid of it.

This is so flexible, you can't do this with a ballpoint.

There you go.

It was never there.

The shoe, be sure the sole's a little bit darker.

That other foot was not there.

This is fun, it really is.

This leg is not long enough if it's really going down, actually it was coming at me and right now I can't think of how to change the anatomy to get it right.

But if it were going down, it has to go down farther.

It wouldn't be quite that short.

So what do you do?

You change it, again.

Changes are so easy.

You simply say, well, I wish it were like that, and then, okay, whoops.

If there's a thigh, where's the thigh?

Okay, now bring the leg out.

Skip the previous bottom, come down here.

Ooh, it's gonna have to come out farther.

The knee?

Yeah, probably out a little farther.

But as you can see, come down and out to the shoe, and then how do you make it work?

Got a problem with the chair legs?

You bring the chair legs down.

That's pretty easy, isn't it?

Back there, I don't know what that dark is, but it doesn't matter.

There it goes.

Another chair back, another leg back there.

You just change things so you can see that you can change all kinds of things with a water soluble pen.

You can't do it with a permanent pen, but you can sure do it with a water soluble pen, and you can make the viewer think that something else was there.

Go over the line if you wanna get rid of it right away.

And then, so there you are.

Watch the changes, watch how they happen.

You can do it.

Actually, it's fun to play with.

It's amazingly facile.

There are many different water soluble pens on the market.

You need one that's small enough that goes with this size paper.

If you get bigger paper, now it's harder to haul around.

You're gonna have probably use more of it.

it's gonna get more expensive.

You wanna keep this inexpensive and fun.

So what are we gonna do next time?

We're gonna do something I don't do normally.

We're gonna play with gouache.

Gouache is white paint.

It turns every color pastel and opaque, and it's very hard to work with it in watercolor.

See you next time.

Happy sketching.

Want to learn more about the wonderful world of Pocket Sketching?

Then visit my website at pocketsketching.com.

We have so much there for you to explore, including free tips and training videos, the pocket sketching supplies, photo galleries, and how to access additional training.

All this and more is available at pocketsketching.com.

Learn enough to play for a lifetime.

- [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided by Sedona Hypnosis LLC, healing your past, creating your future.

Muriel Walsh Estate Sales, representing people is our business, and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music)