Piccadily water fountain, Manchester

Looking at your work makes me think I should give up acrylic paint and buy some acrylic inks. Splendid work.

Hi Tony Inks are fantastic, I prefer them to water colour paints because once they are dry you can put another layer on top without them merging. It means you need to know how to layer colours but this is a good skill to pick up. I use mainly W&N FW but they are getting dearer so I have started using Magic Colour and also Liquitex, with better results with the white and magenta colours, so in future I will probably go with these brands. If you buy inks buy six to start with ... Lemon Yellow, Magenta, Marine Blue, Process Blue, Chrome yellow, Signal red. With these six you will be able to mix pretty much every colour. I have many more that I have added over the years. Also I have bought a 1000 pack of chip shop type mushy pea pots, so I can mix colours on the fly. These can be stacked and will stay usable for a couple of days. Sky colours I might mix in a larger batch and use other recycled pots with lids that can be stored for months, but this is just my way. Looking at your work you are painting rather than drawing, mine is combination of the two, in that I will draw, then paint in thin colour, then draw, then paint and so on. Layers are built up, obvious mistakes or runs are quickly mopped away with tissue. Try to leave as much white paper behind, like in water colour. White paint is a poor substitute for white paper. Your pictures are painted in a more 'impasto' style than the one of mine you are looking at, which is more like a water colour. If you look at the ones I have painted in oils or acrylic paint you will see there is a difference, usually I have added paint in an impasto style. Rather than switching to inks try watering down your colours first, and then relayer when they have dried, until you get a more realistic or subtler effect. Use A4 paper first and practice on a bowl of fruit or something. I often have two or three paintings on the go at the same time as I can keep working while others dry.

Difficult subject well mastered