Pen and Ink Drawing With Watercolor Tutorial

Student artwork, pen and ink with watercolor

Looking for a creative way to bring perspective drawing to life? I recently had my 11th-grade art students explore a fun and dynamic watercolor project that combined pen and ink lines with vibrant washes of watercolor. Building on the skills they honed in our one- and two-point perspective drawing unit, this lesson pushed their creativity even further.

Whether you are an artist looking to try something new or an art teacher wanting to inspire your students with an new art lesson plan, follow this easy tutorial to create your own stunning watercolor pieces. It's a perfect blend of technical skill and artistic freedom. This lesson is perfect for middle school students, high school students, and even college age students and adults.  

Materials:  11” x 15” Watercolor paper, pencil, eraser, ruler, Ultra-fine tip sharpie, masking tape  

Reference photo. Source unknown.

Part 1: Drawing in your scene with pen and ink details: 

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1. First, use your ruler to create a 1” border around the edge of your paper.  You will not mark outside this border.  Keep it clean. 
2. Using light pencil lines, copy the image of the two buildings using what you have learned about perspective.  DO NOT SHADE.  Stay inside your border. 
3. Once you are satisfied with the basic outline and have believable perspective, begin to add details with an Ultra Fine Tip Sharpie marker.  Do NOT use a ballpoint pen or any other water-soluble pen. 
4. Add as much detail and textures as you can with the Sharpie marker.  Keep at it and remember, you can make softer lines by using less pressure. 
5. Later, after we practice with watercolor, we will add watercolor to this picture.  Do NOT begin to add watercolor until you have done some practice.  

Student initial drawing with ink being added.

Part 2: Watercolor Practice: 

At this point, let’s set aside our drawings and do a little watercolor practice. 
Materials: 11” X 15” watercolor paper, pencil, watercolor set, brushes (flat and round), masking tape, cup of water, paper towel, drawing board or other hard and portable surface. 

• First tape your paper to your board by using making tape and taping around all the edges. 
• Next, use your pencil to divide your page into quadrants. 

First quadrant:
For the first quadrant, draw a simple tree shape and horizon line.  In watercolor, you paint the lightest values first.  Paint in your sky using very light colors and paint it all the way through and over your tree shape.  Then let it dry. 
Next, paint the tree foliage and trunk in, using colors of darker value than the sky.  Finally, add a foreground color. 
Notice how the darker colors have no problem going over the top of your lighter sky color.  This would not work in reverse.  You can’t add lighter colors over darker ones in watercolor. 
Second quadrant:
In this quadrant we will apply what we learned in the first quadrant and work on painting in hard crisp edges. 
Draw a simple house shape with a tree behind it.  Add a horizon line. 
Next, paint in a light-colored sky, but do not paint over the house shape.  We will keep the house very light in color and need to protect its white planes. 
After the sky has dried, use a pale purple color to carefully paint in one plane of your house as a shadow color.  Be careful to stay in the lines of the plane. 
Next, let that area dry before you paint in a dark roof shape.  Again, be careful to create nice crisp edges.  Note: you must let one area dry before you paint next to that area, otherwise your colors will bleed into each other. 
Finally, after letting it all dry, go ahead and paint in the tree similar to the first quadrant, and paint in a foreground. 
Third Quadrant:
In this quadrant, we will practice lifting as well as adding in a wash of color. 
First, paint your whole quadrant with just clean water.  Mop up any large puddles quickly.  Then, before it dries, add some light blue to the top section and some light red (or pink) to the bottom section.  Tilt your board up so that the water flows downhill.  It will carry the blue into the pink making a nice sunset color.  Mop up any puddles that form at the bottom of your quadrant. 
Now, we need to move quickly.  Before this large wet area of paint dries (called a wash) crumple up your paper towel and press down hard in different areas to make cloud shapes.  Allow your clouds to overlap each other. 
Finally, add a little darker purple to darken in the bottoms of clouds and then, you can add in some blue green on the bottom to indicate a tree line. 
Soft edges vs. hard edges:  In the previous quadrant, we worked at creating sharp hard edges.  For the clouds, you want to keep your edges soft by adding water and patting with a paper towel.  It is important to be able to make both hard and soft edges as needed. 
Fourth Quadrant:
Use this last quadrant to make a landscape painting of your own.  Keep it simple with a skyline, a middle ground, and a foreground.  Practice what you have learned. 

Part 3: Using watercolor to paint in your scene and buildings: 

​Now, let’s go back to your initial drawing with the buildings done in pen and ink on watercolor paper. 
Materials: Your initial drawing on watercolor paper, a watercolor set, brushes, paper towels, cup of water, drawing board or other portable hard surface, masking tape. 

1. Tape your drawing down to a drawing board like the way we did the watercolor practice. 
2. Color choices: We are not going to get into color theory just yet.  However, to harmonize your colors, please use the 80-10-10 rule.  Choose one color to use over most of your painting - 80%.  Chose another color to cover no more than 10% of your painting.  Likely, this will be a cool color for shadows.  Finally, choose one more color to add a color pop or focal point.  This should cover no more than 10% of your painting.  If you keep your color choices to just three main colors (and their light and dark values) and stick to the 80-10-10 rule, you will have no problem harmonizing your colors. 
3. Take your time and paint in your painting.  Be sure to consider your light source and try to make one side of your building the light side and the other side the shadow side.  Remember, shadows are made using cool colors.  Avoid using black paint unless you are adding a little to darken a color. 

Good luck! 

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Student examples of pen and ink buildings with watercolor 

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I hope you have enjoyed this watercolor tutorial with pen and ink drawing.  As always this lesson is free to you and may be adopted by art teachers for use in their classrooms.  Please do not reprint or publish any part of this article for profit.  

If you enjoyed this lesson, you may also like this Watercolor Project.  LINK

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