This morning I grabbed my "Sketch" Journal and did a quick experiment on mark making using a variety of tools to create the best possible image of a Queen Anne's Lace flower head. Masking fluid was applied using a bamboo pen, a thin twig I have been hoarding for awhile, a balsa wood skewer I took out of my sandwich at Red Robin the other day, a rubber molded shaper and a dip pen with a large nib. (I don't remember which size but a large one). Each of these tools had its pros and cons:
1. Bamboo Pen-not easy to draw the finer lines but gave me better results for the overall flower head size.
2. Twig-very hard to make this work and the flower head is too uniform, not enough differences in the sizes if any to the individual flowers.
3. Balsa Wood Skewer-Uniform lines but terrible flower head. This tool would be useful for doing smaller fence posts.
4. My favorite-the Dip Pen-this gave me the best control of all the tools. If I had a larger nib the results would have been better, but for doing detail work, this is the tool to use.
My observations: I would use the Dip Pen to do finer detail in any type of painting that required such detail, but I would combine this with the bamboo pen when actually creating the flower head. This might also work good for the seed head of a Sunflower. Something to try at another time.
Here is an experiment I did awhile ago in my Painting Journal. My goal was to create a visual seed texture for a Sunflower using a recycled element from a new paint brush....the plastic end we usually throw away. (Virginia suggested using a straw.) I also used India Ink instead of watercolor, but I had to make sure the pigment was dry before adding the ink. If not, the ink would have spread like fire across the whole wet surface. Something to experiment with at a later time too.
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