Walnut ink on bond paper

This ink is not water resistant. It flows nicely with my calligraphy dip pens. I haven't yet tried using it as a watercolor for brushes. I would like to spend some time doing that, but I guess it would take some prep time because I'm so use to cross-hatching.

This quick doodle was done from memory. This is the "sweet" lime tree my pops planted way back when. I had gone in and turned the soil back in February only to realize, after the seed took root, that I missed a large quantity of area which now appears to frame all the greenery with ugly brown dirt.  It was then, in May, that I decided I should take notes on this stuff. So, after I took to the bare spots and cultivated the soil, weeding out the weeds, I planted more shade tolerate grass seed around the edges.

I see Milo from time to time escaping the heat of summer by hunkering down underneath a tangerine tree, which I attempted to grow this shade tolerant seed.  However, it didn't take as well as it did underneath the lime tree. I plan on trying that again, but I dunno if it's a good idea now that we're well into summer. And my back! ugh. My doctor totally overlooked my request for a chiropractor referral, and instead referred me to a neurologist who wants to roter-rooter my asshole. This journaling with nib pens and medieval ink recipes is fine for rambling and filling my blog with regular updates, but what I really want to do is storyboards. 

The problem with that idea is I prefer illustrating like cartoonists, with caption bubbles. Here's the problem. A caption bubble always blocks out part of the scene and in a storyboard, that's a no-no because the area where a caption/speech bubble would normally display may be a good spot to include eye-catching objects which, of course, wouldn't not be visible because of it. Even more prep time required here. Since walnut ink isn't water resistant, I would need to outline everything with a very light pencil, as outlining with the ink would only cause bleeding and smearing when I went back in with a brush to create shadow and shade. In other words, like watercolor painters, I would be required to start my composition with the brush first, coloring in all the areas that require a light wash of ink and gradually progress with darker hues. Time would be required for drying before any attempt to later outline the images with a nib pen.

Panels are a pain because everything is tinier than it would be if I were to draw something on a full sheet of paper. It all comes down to cost. I have an adequate weight drawing pad for trying out brush strokes, but would it be feasible to draw one panel per sheet (which I would later scan into an app on my phone for putting the panels together?), or should should I divide each sheet into panels and draw my compositions that much smaller? Stay tuned to see what I decide to do.