Master Elegant Writer Ink: Make a Spooky Haunted Mansion

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to my Skillshare class. My name is colorism and I'm a mixed media artist in the Midwestern United States. Today we're gonna go on a magical journey that ends in a spooky haunted mansion, are vehicles for getting. There will be this elegant writer pen. What's special about this pen is on the surface. It looks like an ordinary black calligraphy pen. But when you activate the ink with water, that's when the magic happens. No prior experience is required for this class and it's suitable for artists at all levels. Meet me in the next video, where we'll talk more about what we'll be creating together. 2. Your Final Project: For our final project, we will be making a spooky haunted mansion in water activated elegant writer. In the next video, you'll learn about the elegant writer pen and the other materials we'll use to complete this project. After that, we'll work on smaller practice pieces so you can get a feel for how the ink behaves. This way you can work confidently on your final project. Before we dive in, I wanted to call it some important information to access the projects and resources tab, where you'll find the reference images, my sketches, and a detailed supply list. You need to be working in an Internet browser, either on your computer or on your mobile device, not in the Skillshare app. This is also where you'll upload your practice pieces and your final project. When you upload your final project, you can either use a scanner to create the file of your artwork or you can take a photo of your piece. You can also add some text to describe your approach to this project and share anything else that came up for you while you were working on it. Once you've uploaded your project, I'll share my feedback with you. I encourage you to also take a look at others final projects. This is a great opportunity to inspire and be inspired by all the great artists here and our Skillshare community. Meet me in the next lesson where you'll learn about the materials we'll be using in this class. 3. Materials: Before we get started, let's go over the materials we'll need. First, you'll need paper with a smooth finish that can stand up to water. I like to use hot press watercolor paper, but you can also use mixed media paper. You will also need pencils. A gum, eraser, black, elegant writer, calligraphy pens, heat brushes. I'm using a foreground, a six round and a one-inch flat. Two jars, one for clean water and one for rinse water. Paper towel or a soft rag. Waterproof fine liners. I'm using sicker micron and 05.08 for the finishing touches and embellishments. You can also use posca pens, iridescent or metallic watercolor, and a spray bottle to activate it. And any other medium that you like to use. In the class resources section, you'll also find reference images, my sketches, and my handout on how to use the grid method to make your sketch. In the next video, I'll show you how to transfer your sketches from plain paper to watercolor paper. So meet me there and let's get started. 4. Transferring Sketches: Before we begin, let's go over why and how will transfer our sketches from plain paper to watercolor paper. We want to draw our sketch on plain paper first because we don't want eraser marks on our watercolor paper. The first thing I'm gonna do is take my sketch and turn it over. Then I'm going to take a softer graphite pencil. I'm using a six B and go over the back of your sketch with graphite, making sure to cover the full area of your sketch. You can use graphite paper, but I find the graphite is so loosely deposited on the paper that it causes a lot of smearing, which can muddy your image. As an alternative to graphite paper. You can transfer your sketch from scratch paper to watercolor paper very quickly and with less mass to clean up afterwards using graphite pencils, I made this sketch pretty dark. So it's easy for me to see where the lines are even with the paper turned over. This allows me to cover only the area where my lines are and reduces the chance that the graphite will smudge on my watercolor paper. Ideally, you use two of them. One with softer graphite like a six B, and one with harder graphite like a to H. But any pencil you have on hand will do the trick. If you've got a larger image or a more detailed image like our haunted mansion, you'll want to cover the entire area of the paper that contains the sketch. Once you're finished laying down your graphite on the back of your sketch, you can turn it over and tape it in place on top of your watercolor paper using artist's tape or painter's tape, and then go over your sketch. For this, I like to use a harder graphite pencil. I'm using it to h, and I'm just going to make my way around the sketch and go over my lines until I've gone over them all. I like to pull up one side of the paper and check to see that I've got every line. If I haven't, I can just lay it back in place and continue my transfer. Once you've gone over your sketch completely and the transfer is finished, you can take a gum eraser and use it to pick up any stray graphite that may have smudge on your paper. I also like to lighten my transferred sketch just a bit, especially if I'm going to use it for watercolor. In this instance, we'll be using a pigment that is pretty dark. So it's not necessary to make the transferred image very faint. But I'm gonna do that here so you can see how it's done. I'm just taking my kneaded eraser and lightly pressing it on top of the watercolor paper, rather than rubbing it back and forth, which could damage the paper. Now you're ready to apply the elegant writer ink, activate it, and then strengthen your lines with a permanent fine liner. Take a few minutes to transfer your sketches for the practice lessons, as well as your haunted mansion onto watercolor paper. And then meet me in the next video, where we'll get started with our first practice exercise. This potion bottle 5. Practice 1 - Potion Bottle: Before we begin, let's take a look at our reference photo and identify the lightest to darkest values in the image. This will tell us how to vary our line weight when we go over our sketch with the elegant writer ink and help us translate these light and dark values to our painting when we activate it. First of all, lay down a thin line of ink on the entire sketch. For that, we'll use a 2.0 nib elegant writer. Next we'll switch to the 2.5 nib elegant writer to lay down the additional ink on areas with the darkest values, the lower-left corner of the bottle, the upper-right edge of the bottleneck, and the top of the sphere and the stopper. We're going to activate the areas that will be the darkest. First. We'll begin by placing small puddles of clean water between our line work in the whitespace where we want the values to be lighter. Next, we'll run the brush along the bottom left corner of the bottle, activating the ink and then pulling it into the areas where we have made puddles. We'll lay down quite a bit of water and the areas we want to keep light, the ink and water consistency should be similar to that of a weak tea, will significantly decrease the amount of water on our brush when we go over the areas that will remain darker in value. So the pigment will be less diluted. We want to work quickly and continuously so we can blend the dark and light areas in smoothly before hard edges form. With the body of the bottle activated. Let's take a moment to blot the belly where we want to keep the value of the lightest. Then we'll continue blending. Drag the tip of your brush along the thicker lines in the bottom-left corner to pick up any ink that has yet to be activated, blend it into the lighter area of the bottle. We can use a brush that's damped with clean water to lift the pigment in the areas we want to keep lighter, like the belly of the bottle and the left side of the neck of the bottle. If we keep the active area of R P sweat at all times will be able to blend and block the ink and time to keep the transition between light and dark areas smooth. We'll keep pushing the pigment around and blending until we achieve a smooth transition. Now let's move to the bottle stopper. We're going to again put a puddle of clean water in the center of the sphere and along the very top of the bottle stop or where we want the value to remain lighter, will pull the pigment from the lines into the clean water, pushing the pigment toward that puddle. Keep adding clean water to the bottom of the sphere to keep that area light. And begin to blend in the pigment around the lip of the bottle. Continue blending and bleeding until you've achieved a smooth transition between the lighter and darker values on the bottle stopper. Once you're happy with the values and transitions you've achieved, will use a fine liner to clean up and strengthen our line work. But first, you have to let your paper dry. You can either let it dry naturally for several hours or use a hairdryer to speed things up. Let's strengthen our lines. Will start by pulling the lighter lines forward a bit. I'm using my sucker micron O5 to lightly go over the finer detail lines. Now that the lighter weight lines are complete, Let's strengthen the heavier line work on the outside of the bottle and the stopper. I'm using my sucker micron 08 for this line work. Now your potion bottle is complete. You can add some fun details using past the pens as I've done here if you wish, and then meet me in the next lesson, where we'll work with a more detailed image and enchanted crystal ball 6. Practice 2 - Crystal Ball: Just as we did with the potion bottle, will review our reference image before we begin so we can identify the areas of lightest and darkest value. Again, we'll use a 2.0 nib, elegant writer and lay down a fine line of ink throughout the entire sketch. I'm using faint dotted and dashed lines on the areas within the crystal ball that demarcate the lightest and darkest values. Next we'll switch to the 2.5 nib, elegant writer and put down a heavier line of ink in the areas where we want a darker value at the top of the crystal ball to suggest the shadow there. At the bottom of the crystal ball. Both to suggest a shadow there and to achieve a dark value in the cradle of the base where the crystal ball is resting. We'll also go over some of the lines on the left side of the crystal ball cradle. And on the left and center edges of the base. We'll start with the cradle of the crystal ball. First, we'll lay down some clear water in the white spaces between the lines, just as we did in the bottle image. And we'll pull the ink in from the edges into those puddles of water. We're going to make sure we add a lot of clean water to the right side of the cradle because that area is lighter in value. When we get toward the left side of the Cradle will decrease the amount of water we have on our brush, keeping the consistency of the ink and water rather thick. Moving to the crystal ball will place a big puddle of water in the center of the ball and start depositing some of the extra ink and the darkest portions of the cradle. We'll just tap it into the puddle cleaner brushes off and blend the ink and a swirling motion. This will add dimension to the crystal ball and render a mystical foggy appearance inside the crystal ball. Continue pulling the Incan from the dotted lines and blending in a swirling motion. Move to the top of the crystal ball and with a moderate amount of water, activate the ink at the top of the crystal ball. Will continue pulling some of the ink from this area into the center to enhance the foggy appearance with it. Now move down to the bottom of the crystal ball with a large amount of water to activate that ink. We want to keep this area, a little lighter, areas around the edges of the ball to lighten them and then blend them out with a damp, clean brush. Continue blending and bleeding until you're happy with the values you have achieved and your transitions are smooth. Now, moving down to the base of the standard will again lay down a large puddle of water in the areas between the lines and begin pulling the ink and towards that water. To activate it. We're using more water on the right side of the base since that area is lighter in value, again, keeping the entire area wet and working continuously so we can achieve smooth transitions and avoid harsh edges. Begin plotting the right side of the stand to lighten that area and then blend with a damp, clean brush. Next, with a nearly dry brush, work your way toward the foot of the stand and activate that. And finally, laid down a puddle beneath a crystal ball in the bottom-right corner and begin pulling water in from the edge of the base to create our shadow. Just pull and blend, adding water to blend out the edges, and lifting excess pigment with a clean dry brush. Take care of any blending that remains to be done. And then either allow your paper to air dry for several hours or use a hairdryer. Next, we'll use a waterproof fine liner to strengthen our line work. I'm using my 05 sacra fine liner to go over the grooves in the cradle of the crystal ball base. And then I'm switching to my 08 sicker or a fine liner to strengthen the remaining lines. You finished your crystal ball. You can use posca pens and other media to add visual interest as I've done here, if you wish. Meet me in the next video, where we'll work on an even more detailed image. A cute little ghost 7. Practice 3 - Ghost: We don't have a reference image for Argos, so we'll have to think about where the light source is, where the shadows would occur in the folds of his sheet and where the light would reflect off his sheet. We'll begin with our two-point own IP elegant writer. It's important to note that we will not be placing elegant writer ink on every line in this sketch. We're going to avoid are ghosts, eyes and nose, as well as the smaller folds and the bottom of the sheet. We will only be placing ink on the outer edges of the ghost. And then the major fold lines of the bottom of his sheet. I'm even breaking my lines up at the bottom of his sheets so that I'm only really laying down ink in and under the folds where there would be shadow. I'm also using a dotted line at the top right of my ghost because I'm imagining my light source coming from the top right corner. And I want this area to remain very light in value. I'm switching to my 2.5 nib, elegant writer to place a thicker line only at the top-left of our ghost. Because again, I'm imagining the light source coming from the top-right and landing on his face, leaving the back of his head and shadow. Laid down a generous puddle of water and the large open space where our ghost faces in front of his body, as well as in-between the lines that indicate the folds of his sheep. Once you've done that, began pulling the ink and from the bottom-left corner and bringing it up the left side of the ghost where it will meet the large puddle we have placed near his face. Continue working your way, right? Working from the bottom up, pulling the ink into the puddle of water we've created and keeping a lot of water up at the top near his face. So the value remains there. We can pull additional ink up from the lines we created along the folds of his sheep to indicate the shadow there. And then using clean water lifts some more ink from the ghost face and blood again to keep that area very light. We're going to keep blending this out using a clean damp brush. Once you're happy with your values and transitions, allow your paper to air dry or use a hairdryer to speed up the drying process so that we can strengthen our lines. We will begin with an L5 sacra fine liner and start bringing forward the details of the folds and our goal sheet. We'll strengthen both the lines where we had the elegant writer, as well as the lines from our sketch that we left bare to bring forth the detail in our ghost. Once we're happy with the level of detail in the folds, we'll switch to our 08 sicker or a fine liner and strengthen the lines on the outside of the goats. Last but certainly not least, let's darken his eyes and mouth. Now he is all done and you can embellish him using Posca markers, gel pens, or any other media you have on hand as I've done here if you wish. Next step on our journey will begin the haunted mansion. Meet me in the next lesson and we'll get started. 8. Haunted Mansion Elegant Writer Ink Application: Our haunted mansion, we're going to use our reference image to inform only the structure of our Mansion. As you can see, the reference image is of a lovely pink Victorian mansion with beautiful landscaping. We're going to take inspiration from the Manchus design and let our creativity take it from there to make it spooky. Or imagined light source is going to be the moon in the sky, just out of frame. So the top of the sky will get lighter as we move up and away from the mansion, the wealth of the mansion will reflect some of the moonlight, but we'll also have shadow where the corners meet. We will also leave the windows very light to suggest that someone is home, as we did with their ghost leaves. Some of our detailed lines bear. We will avoid the decorative wrought iron details, the balcony metalwork, the shutters, the windows, and the lions on the columns at the bottom of the stairs will define all of those details. When we go over our peace with waterproof, fine liners, we will only use our 2.0 nibs are good writers since there are so many details. This is so the piece doesn't become too dark once the ink is activated. Using our 2.0 elegant writer, we will place a fine line of ink on the trees and bushes and all of the main structural lines of the house, leaving all the decorative details I mentioned earlier, bear. We'll work from the top down. Once our initial outline is complete, we'll go over the lines where the trim meets the walls of the house, as well as the rooftops once more to darken them. That way, when we activate the ink, we can have a nice dark sky and we can also create shadows where they would fall under the trim and in the corners of the mansion. Meet me in the next video, where we'll activate the elegant writer ink 9. Haunted Mansion Elegant Writer Ink Activation: To activate the elegant writer ink, we're going to start with the sky. Firstly down a generous puddle of clean water covering the entire sky area. I'm using a wide flat brush to help me cover more area quickly, which will help me keep the paper from drying before I'm finished activating the EQ. I'm going to switch to my round brush. This time I'm using a slightly larger one. It doesn't have a size on it, but it looks to me somewhere 6-8. I'm going to bring my brush carefully between the trees and start pulling the ink upward to make my sky. And I'm going to work left to right, moving toward the sides and rooftops of the mansions. Pulling that into our wet paper to make the dark sky. I'm going to switch back to my large flat brush for a moment to help me pull any excess ink from the thicker lines we made at the top of the roof and the sides of the house into the wet paper that will make up our sky. I'm also making swirling motions with the ink to create the appearance of clouds in the night sky. Now I'm going to block the very outer edges of the sky. Those will be later, remember because our moon light is shining from above just out of frame of the image. After we blot, we're going to use our round brush to blend away any hard edges. Switching to my round number four brush, I'm going to start activating the mansion one section at a time. I'll lay down a puddle of water on the whitespace between my lines, then pull the ink toward that water to activate it. We want to make sure we use a lot of water where the windows will be unblocked them to keep those values liked. As you add water and blot, make sure to use a damp, clean brush to keep blending those edges out. Continue this process throughout the entire mansion, taking it section by section, remembering to use a lot of water on the windows and then block them to keep those areas lightened value. We also want to make sure that we're using a lot of water and blotting and the areas where our wrought iron details and balconies are to ensure that we'll be able to see them when it's time to use our fine liners to sharpen our lines. Keep coming back to the sky as you work, making sure to keep it damp and keep up with your blending so there are no hard edges, only smooth transitions. Now let's activate the ink and the trees. We're going to blot the top of some of the bushes to indicate the moon light reflecting off the top of them. Makes sure the outer edges of this guy are very light and any harsh edges are blended and wow. Now we're going to activate the lines at the very bottom of the bushes to create the lawn. Lawn will be darker as it gets close to the house and lighter near the bottom of the page, the part of the lawn that's closest to the house will be in shadow. But as the lawn moves away from the house, it will start reflecting moonlight from up in the sky. Now that the whole piece is activated, let's go back over the windows and the details. We did not line an elegant writer ink with clean water and make sure that they remain light. Making sure to blend out your edges. Once you're finished activating and blending until all of your transitions are smooth with no hard edges, it's time to let your mansion dry. You can either use a hairdryer or let it air dry. Meet me in the next video, where we will use posca pens and other media to accentuate the details of our Mansion. 10. Haunted Mansion Embellishment: Once your mansion is dry, you'll want to go over it with your fine liner. I used a sucker o5 to go over all the details of dimensions such as the windows, the wrought iron work, the shutters, and other decorative elements of the house. Then I switch to my 08 fine liner to strengthen the lines on the outside of the house, as well as the landscaping. Once you've completed this step, we can pick up our posca pens, gel pens, and watercolor paints to add embellishments to our haunted mansion. For my finishing touches, I'm going to use silver and black posca pens and some iridescent watercolor paint. First, I'm going to take my fine tip black Posca pen and go over all of my lines, both interior and exterior so that they're more saturated and they stand out. Then I'm going to take my silver posca pen and I'm going to use that to bring out the small decorative circles above the window shutters. I'm also going to run my silver posca pen over the stairs to indicate the moon light reflecting off of them. Finally, I'm going to take my iridescent watercolor paint and make a few friendly goats. I'm also going to use this iridescent watercolor paint on each of the windows to give them a glow, suggesting light coming from within the mansion. I'll also add a little gold light on the front door. Finally, I'm going to use the iridescent paint to make some splatters on the painting to give it an eerie, supernatural vibe. 11. Conclusion: I hope you enjoyed our adventure. Together, we learned how to apply and activate elegant writer so that we can use it to create light, shadow, depth, and beautiful smooth blends. I hope you'll make sure to upload your work to the project section of this class. I'll take a look at them all, answer any questions. You may have an offer some feedback. If you've completed the projects, you can use your new skills to create stunning portraits, still lives, wildlife, landscapes or anything really that fascinates you. Take the elegant writer with you on your adventures and capture all the magic you find. If you'd like to keep in touch with me, you can find links to my social media and websites below in the description