Derwent Inktense Workshop

Cult Pens had an intense Inktense workshop recently, thanks to our friends at Derwent and the incredibly talented artist and psychotherapist Beverley Haines - you can read more about her here www.beverleyhaines.co.uk. Beverley is a firm believer in the creation of art as a means of improving mental wellbeing: when you're concentrating on drawing or painting it's very hard to worry about anything else! She really loves the Inktense pencils and blocks because they're so versatile. You can draw with them, colour in with them, paint with them, print with them, and create unusual effects.

So how do you start? Well, first get hold of some Inktense! Then draw something using the pencils. Next, use a waterbrush to blend the colours (you don't have to - you can leave it as it is, but we were keen to experience everything the Inktense can do). Once it's dry you can go over it - or some of it - with another colour, and - this is the really amazing bit - if you use a waterbrush on the new, just-laid colour, it won't affect the layer you put down earlier. In other words, once dry, Inktense is permanent, which is why you can also use it to decorate fabrics. It's a fantastic way of adding depth to artwork.

Beverley does a lot of what she calls 'mark making': she makes indentations into bits of polystyrene or cardboard with Inktense pencils and then coats them in colour using the Inktense blocks. Then with the help of a fine spray of water or even a wet wipe, the colour is transferred onto paper to create patterns or additions to already-created pictures. She also showed us a few simple tricks to add extra effects: apply a block or pencil to the tip of a waterbrush to add colour, and write with it to produce simple calligraphy, or flick it to create a splatter effect.

Inktense really is amazing. If your art kit just consisted of Inktense you wouldn't go far wrong. Beverley was an enthusiastic and patient teacher, and we're very grateful to her and Derwent for showing us the ropes.