To remind myself of the special things I had to take to drawing class with me this week, I wrote ‘ink and sticks’ in my diary.  Since last week I’ve been collecting handy looking little sticks from the park, as well as dropping in a few odd bits and pieces into my bag.

What I hadn’t quite expected was that we would be using nothing but ink and sticks ( and half a washing up sponge and a splash of bleach) mostly brandished in the ‘wrong’ hand all day.

It was all about experimentation and splendid failure, and it took me a long time to produce anything that looked like anything other than a wet mess.

So when you’re looking at the image above, remember it’s made with Quink applied with a house-painting brush and a cocktail stick dipped in bleach, all brandished in my left hand.

I’d never previously had caused to wonder what effect applying bleach to Quink would have – I can now tell you that it’s a bit like magic writing, there’s a delay between the application and the development of the orange colour, so there was always doubt about what it would look like.