Handala

Handala, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

inspired by Stephanie's hand mandalas, and along with CED for January's theme, Body. Marker pen (Pitt, Sakura) with fountain pen ink and watercolor.

I really enjoyed working on this; I want to do another one and take it a little further. This time, I just wanted to keep the mandala part small and play with colour.

This was done in my new best friend, the Exacompta Basics sketchbook. I had some small vials of fountain pen ink that I'd gotten as samples from the Pear Tree Pen company, which were handy - I didn't have to worry as much about spillage. I tried a few different ways to put it on - water brush, regular brush, and drawing it in with the pen then wetting it. But in the end the method I liked best was to wet the paper first around the outline, then dip the fine brush point into the ink and apply it  around the black outline. I'd let it bleed a bit over the wet portion of the paper, and sometimes help it along by adding a little more fresh water. The smaller areas in the mandala, were just  painted right onto the dry paper - I didn't want to fool around too much there.

Inks used were J. Herbin Vert Olive, JH Rose Cyclamen, PR Arabian Rose, and then just regular Winsor and Newton watercolours for the yellow.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's many hand mandalas  for more inspiration!

eta: oh no! I just noticed hair on the scanner! it's too late now. maybe I'll rescan it tomorrow. Maybe.