Two-ink sketching in Yosemite National Park

I’m enjoying playing with a two-toned approach to my linework: For the most part, I do a very loose line drawing with brown ink first, just enough to let me see where my big shapes are. Then it’s watercolor time. Last of all, I’m back in with a darker ink to define shapes and draw attention to parts of the image. I’m finding it to be a good way to keep my line from being flat and monotonous. And, knowing I will come back in for a second time and define what I need to keeps me from drawing too much in line on my first pass: It allows for less defined edges, like the clouds at the top of El Capitan in Yosemite (below) breaking the edge of the rock formation.

Here’s another rock formation I sketched, this time from the top of Vernal Falls, halfway through a beautiful hike.
This one is Sentinel Rock (yes, they all start to merge after a while), but you can see I was having fun with this two-ink thing…

I used pencil and black pen here. This is Yosemite Falls.

And for variety, here’s a branch of pine using brown and black ink, blue colored pencil, and a white gel pen.

These are the Giant Sequoias in the southern part of the park.

And my favorite rock (and sketch) comes last: Half Dome. In watercolor, graphite pencil and a wee bit of blue colored pencil.

Here’s what I’m using: Two Sailor bent nib pens, one with black carbon ink the other with De Atramentis Brown Document ink. Graphite pencil, blue colored pencil, white gel pen, and watercolor.