Sand Pattern 1 is the first ink piece I have tried on watercolor paper. I used Rotring rapidograph pens and Arches cold press watercolor paper.When I started this piece, I was surprised at the width of the line produced by the pens. All size marks were significantly smaller than I anticipated. Small points such as the .13 and .18 were virtually invisible. I believe it is the sizing on the watercolor paper (I do not wet and stretch the paper ahead of time) that made the ink "sit" on top of the paper. In fact, as I was working on this piece, I had to be very careful about avoiding the recently inked areas as the ink did not soak into the paper resulting in a long drying time.
Most of the drawing was done with .35, .5 and .7 points, although some section also included .25, ,3, 1.0 and 1.4 points. You can click to enlarge full image of this drawing at the top right of this post. A section of the bottom is shown above. In this section, you can see the use of different point sizes in order to create varying shades of gray and varying textures.
Clicking on the picture to the left will give you a clear image showing the varying point size stipples along with the filled in plants. In order to contrast with the stippling of the sand, I decided to give the plants a "solid" feel by filling them in. I used a .7 point for the plants. I also used my "scribble" technique along with the plants.
