St Edmund's School Canterbury, dip pen & digital

St Edmund’s School Canterbury, pen and ink  © Peter Gander 2012

Having taken on two commissions to paint St Edmund’s School Canterbury as a watercolour, I found a reference photo on my desk and thought I’d produce a version my way. Forever keen to keep things looking spontaneous and fresh, I avoided a direct trace approach and pinned up the pic at a distance and drew it freehand with dip pen - not even drawing a sketch in pencil first. Risky, but worthwhile if it comes off, as it did here. I scanned in the indian ink and dip-pen linework and added colour very roughly with simple use of a straight lasso tool, ensuring the piece had that block printing look, with little time for detail. Thus it has a lovely and airy misregistered feel, where colours don’t quite fit the lines. It reminds me slightly of Edward Pond’s art which used to populate the London Liverpool Street to Cambridge train carriages a couple of decades ago, although you need to imagine this without the black linework! Indian ink and dip-pen on cartridge with digital colour.