SS "Burrawong"

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I love this pen and wash and I am interested in your views in working in this medium. I have being doing quite a few pen and wash paintings lately but I am very guilty of doing exactly what you warn against - turning them into paintings rather than just applying a wash of colour here and there. I just can't seem to control myself! Looking at your one here, I think I need to re-assess what I am doing because your style works wonderfully well.

I like Line and Wash as a medium which combines drawing and painting skills. I prefer to call it Line and Wash rather than Pen and Wash as the line work can be done with a variety of tools such as pens, brushes, skewers, twigs, bamboo pens, to name just a few ... each gives its own unique feeling to the line. When out and about it can be convenient to do the line work and then bring it back to the studio to add colour later. But the difficult aspect of this medium is to get a good balance between line and colour. The trick is to know when to stop and not turn the "wash" into a watercolour painting. I don't pre-draw my line work; I think the method I use of drawing directly gives a more spontaneous and lively outcome. In this 'painting' the colour is controlled to mainly the area to the right of the funnel and a few simple brushmarks for water, quick strokes with a flat brush on part of the hull and a few touches of colour elsewhere.