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What ACEO is all about
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Product Review: Derwent Inktenseby Robert A. Sloan
Derwent Inktense are well named. Watersoluble like watercolor pencils, they will form a rich, vividly colored wash if touched with a wet brush, sponge or other applicator. Warning: this will only work once. The special thing about Derwent Inktense is that they are ink pencils. One wash will dissolve a smooth layer of Inktense into an ink wash that dries into waterproof brilliant colored ink. This makes it very easy to layer glazes of different colors, since a later glaze will not pick up the previous color at all. Either you can scribble on a palette, a bit of scratch paper or a paper plate and stir it around with a wet brush to get a handy ink wash at exactly the value you want, or draw a smooth tonal layer directly on your art and then wet it down with a wet brush.
Used dry, Derwent Inktense blend well and handle like other soft colored pencils. They have good coverage and once wet, are transparent and richly pigmented. If you want a light area, say, turning Fuchsia into a pale pink, either use a lot of water on a scribble to make a thin wash or barely put any pencil down on the paper. They are extremely strong. Like colored inks, Derwent Inktense are not entirely lightfast, some colors are more lightfast than others. Watch out for the reds. Iris Blue, Fuchsia and Poppy Red are one point below lightfast, which is still probably reasonable, Tangerine is two points below lightfast and the most fugitive are Chili Red and Shiraz. This may not be an issue for ACEO collectors, as most ACEOs are stored in albums, but it's good information to have if you're planning larger works with them. Do not hang Inktense artworks in direct sunlight, hang them next to a window rather than across from it. If you are doing a piece that needs extreme lightfastness, Baked Earth, a warm earth red, is extremely lightfast and the other colors in the range are all at least lightfastness 6 on the scale of 1 to 8 that Derwent uses, where 8 is the very best and 6 is lightfast. Derwent Inktense are soft and creamy, with good laydown and even used dry have a strong pigment concentration. The Outliner is a convenience for being able to sketch under wet or dry applications without worrying about graphite bleed and it's useful even without the other Inktense colors for use with water media.
Because of the permanence of the ink, it's damaging to sable and synthetic brushes. It will stain permanently if it's ever let to dry in the brushes and may ruin them by gluing the hairs together. I never let my brush dry when using Inktense, always rinsing it immediately between colors and between washes. At the end of a session I wash it up with a Master's Brush Cleaner cake and the Inktense comes right out, keeping to this drill has kept me from losing my favorite size 6 golden taklon brush to its convenience with Inktense. If you use a waterhandle brush, just swipe it enough times on paper towels or scrap paper till it runs clean, it's very easy to clean waterhandle brushes. Simply take care with brushes and pens as if you were using a shellac-based ink and you won't have any trouble with wet applications of Derwent Inktense. Because they are watersoluble pencils, Derwent Inktense will function well on either 140lb watercolor paper or the lighter 90lb multimedia paper or student watercolor paper. If you are using large areas of wash I would recommend using the heavier paper, but with watersoluble pencils, it's sometimes easier to go light on the water with nearly a dry brush instead of doing loose broad washes. Derwent Inktense are easy to use, reasonably clean (except for the need to wash brushes constantly) and great for ACEOs because you can get very dramatic effects on small pieces of watercolor paper in great detail. Sharpening them to a fine point to work into details and wetting only that tiny detail allows you to place a permanent, immovable detail that won't get dissolved if you go over it again with another color -- or combine them with watercolor or other watercolor pencils. The strong colors and permanence also make them a great underpainting for colored pencil drawing. You can either do the final dry layers with Inktense, or go over them with wax or oil base colored pencils like Prismacolor or Lyra Rembrandt. Once again, Derwent's labs have created a proprietary new pencil that's incredible, a must-have for anyone who likes colored pencils and especially watersoluble colored pencils. Doing the base layers and anything that you don't want to move with later layers in Inktense is the best new thing to come along in a long time. They're reasonably priced and available online as well as at art stores, I bought my set at Dick Blick, which also carries a snappy canvas roll premium set and a gift set that includes a spiral bound watercolor pad, sharpener and brush. Six and twelve color sets don't include the Outliner, but it can also be purchased separately and so can the individual colors, if you want to test them with primaries and Outliner or a small set. I'd go for the full range though, since the full range isn't that large and all the colors are so useful in everything from florals to landscapes, animals and portraits. These ink pencils have become essential in my colored pencils lineup, and are useful in so many ways that I have yet to find out everything I can do with them. Here are several of the ACEOs that I've created with Derwent Inktense. You can find my tutorial for the Strawberries ACEO here along with many other how to draw articles I've posted. The nasturtiums were drawn with light tonal layers, then washed and glazed with toning colors. The orchids were done the same way, except that to get them light, I left some areas entirely white and washed into them from the edges of the color area. Have fun and give Derwent Inktense a try. You won't regret it. |
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Derwent, a UK company also known as Rexel-Cumberland, has been
creating specialty pencils for the past several years. Derwent
Inktense ink pencils, like several others, is unique to this British
company and a very powerful medium for ACEO artists with its vivid
colors and unique properties. You can find out more about Derwent
Inktense and see some tutorials by artist Fiona Peart as well as
download free wallpapers from 
The 24 color set includes 23 colors and a nonsoluble Outliner pencil.
This isn't the clear resist pencil I thought it was, though you can
use any colorless blender pencil as a clear resist to reserve
permanent whites under a wash of Inktense or watercolor or watercolor
pencil. It's a graphite pencil with moderate softness that will not
smudge or dissolve when washed over -- and thus will not gray or tint
even very light colors if you use it for strong outlines and accent
marks in your Inktense piece.
Because of the permanence of the colored ink, Derwent recommends
Derwent Inktense for silk painting and other fabric projects. A little
patience with a tweezers and you can remove the wood shavings from the
sharpened shavings to have colored ink powder that can be dissolved in
a porcelain or plastic palette and used as liquid ink. Because they
are pencils, they are very handy for drawing outdoors or on the go.
Ink without the need for a bottle or even a brush. Just sketch on the
spot and add water back in the studio, or carry a water handle brush
to do washes in the field.