Creating Atmosphere with Ink

Practical painting techniques for creating atmospheric art using ink + my essential artist toolkit.

This month, I'm focusing on ink as my art material of choice and pondering what makes this material so appealing to me and to countless artists, past and present.

In this post, I’ll share the qualities ink can bring to an illustration, show examples of how I’ve used it in my work and showcase some of my favourite artists and illustrators who work with inks.

Sketch of a fox, using grey Diamine ink.

For me, the main reason I love to paint with ink is the atmospheric effects you can create, which is a key ingredient to much of my narrative-based work. For pieces where I want to bring across a moody or thoughtful atmosphere, I mostly work in grey and black ink, but there is a huge variety of coloured ink on the market, with tantalising names such as Writer’s Blood and Monboddo’s Hat (both made by Diamine) for when you need a pop of colour. 

But I love the simplicity of monochrome and how with just one bottle of grey ink, a brush, some water (and my imagination!) I can create illustrations with emotion and depth. It’s an effect I would find hard to achieve by using pens or other types of paint alone, but ink seems to bring this effect out naturally.

My main method of applying ink is with brushes so the techniques listed below are mostly brush-based. When I need to add a line or definition, I use a small round brush and apply fine brush strokes in the way I would pencil marks. 

However, I’m not a purist when it comes to art materials, I’ll use what I need to make the image work. I often use pencils or charcoal on top of my ink painting if it needs extra definition or texture, and will on occasion use Photoshop to tweak or define an image after I’ve painted it. All the examples I share in this post started it’s life using ink and brush and worked on top of with drawing mediums.

Painting with ink - techniques and approaches:

Here are some ways I use ink to bring across mood and atmosphere in my work:

Tonal effects

Diluting ink to create graded tones. Ink has similar qualities to watercolour and certain types of ink can be diluted with water to create a range of tones from dark to light. Gradual transitions between these tones create a sense of distance and mood.

Layering washes. Start with light washes and gradually layer darker tones. This builds depth and adds dimension. Let each layer dry before applying the next.

‘Mother Bear and Cub’. Painted using grey and diluted back ink