When the world’s a little grey, the perfect thing to do is add your own colour and brighten it up! I’ve grabbed my two Inktense Paint Pan Sets and thought I’d draw a horse chestnut.
Like all my pieces, the best place to start is with an outline sketch of my chosen subject. After I have lightly sketched the horse chestnut basic shape and outline, I began to add colour.
It’s best to remember here is that horse chestnuts, like all things, aren’t a single flat colour. They are full of depth, minor tonal changes and shape. This is one of the best things about the Inktense range, when one bottom layer dries, you can add colour on top – which gives you an opportunity to create unique colours.
Build the horse chestnut shell 
Build the horse chestnut shell 
Build the horse chestnut shell
I build the chestnut shell layer by layer, starting with a light layer and working darker and darker. Firstly, you’ll see that I began with a base layer of green from set #01 before mixing in sienna brown shades from set #02 in the wet layer. Then a yellow orange mixture from set #02. Wait until the paint is dry to put the next layer on top. To give it shade, I use a blue from set #01. And what you notice is that I work from big to small. So now I gave some more detail with a thin brush point.
Creating the chestnut 
Creating the chestnut
Time to work on the horse chestnut, using sienna brown from set #02 and purple from set #01. In the video you can clearly see how I run the colours using a wet-on-wet technique in the wet layer. And with the tissue paper I recreate the light in the chestnut. Build up layers to get the right tone and contrast between light and dark. The darkest colours I created by mixing night blue from set #02 and purple from set #01 – nothing is just deep black. I haven’t used any black paint in my chestnut piece as my mixing technique gives much more depth! Then a red layer above it all to give the chestnut more warmth. Build it up with lots of layers of paint.
Then add the shade under the chestnut. It gives it more depth. Again a mixture of the purple and the blue. With a wet on wet technique. For the last details, I apply the thin lines with my dark colour on the chestnut borders.
And here is the final result!
Good luck with practising with the Derwent Inktense Paint Pan Sets and enjoy creating – there’s always time to add a bit of colour to your life!
Thanks to Julia Woning for creating this fantastic piece and video for us! You can discover her work on her website, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.
Inspired by Julia’s work? You can grab your own Inktense Paint Pan Set here.
Interested in the NEW Derwent Push Button Waterbrushes Julia is using, shop for them here.