Happy Accidents

My recent art class had us working with ink and bamboo pens and I loved the effects so much I came home and ordered a selection of inks and different sizes of pens.  

I've been playing around with the inks on different papers using the bamboo pens and brushes. This painting was another of those happy accidents which I love so much. I had initially planned to try doing a very black sky using ink on wet paper. The paper was a bit too wet so the ink ran but it produced what looked like a tree when the paper was turned upside down. It made me think of a bleak and snowy landscape so I did a wintry sky using watercolours and used a white ink pen and liquid ink with a brush to create the snow. 

I don't think I would have produced anything like this if I had set out to do it and I am definitely experimenting much more these days rather than working on anything specific. I'm feeling a lot more confident in being able to create my impression of a scene and as a result I'm starting to produce more 'abstract' work.  However the art class was great for helping me brush up on my drawing skills while also challenging me to be more expressive.