SusieG Studio

If I was to go through all of my pen & ink sketches that I created using my fountain pens and inks, the one predominant and consistently used ink color that would show up would be Robert Oster Thunderstorm.

Back in 2019, this was one of the first few bottles of inks that I purchased online and fell in love with. I used this blue black ink color to write with in my journals. It wasn’t too long before I also found a need for this ink when I started to sketch with this color. Over the years, I have created several monochromatic drawings including this most recent one of a pelican.

If I stare at this pelican long enough, I can see other hints of colors appear like light blue, lavender, and pink.

I recently acquired a beautiful pen for my special day. After filling my pen with ink, I decided to sketch it. It wasn’t until I finished my sketch with a layer of Thunderstorm for the shadows, that I saw similar colors from the pen in the shadow I just created. Can you see the colors?

Naturally, I had to create a few test ink swatches of Thunderstorm and the three shimmering inks I used in my fountain pen sketch. For my Thunderstorm swatch, I did an “ooops” and laid down too much ink on my paper. I had to swipe my water brush several times over the ink. In the end it showed the underlying colors of this beautiful ink.

You can see bits of pink, purple, and of course variations of blue.

Here’s another quick test swatch to show how Thunderstorm looks underneath the shimmering colors. Thunderstorm is such a delightful ink to use and I enjoy how the “shadow” appears to be pulling similar colors from above.

I keep a dark line of Thunderstorm under my sketched objects and pull the color away with my water brush. This helps to make the object’s colors vibrant and appear to pop off the paper. It also makes my object appear grounded versus floating around the paper.

Inks: Robert Oster Thunderstorm, Silver Dawn, Blood Rose, and Morning Shine

Journal: Funto 100% cotton watercolor journal