Adding Colour into Inktober

Today’s Inktober prompt is Cactus. I have to admit I’ve never been a Cactus fan. I can remember back when I was a kid that "Prickly Pear" had become a real nuisance in drier farming parts of northern Victoria. I can also remember it being described as a noxious weed. Can’t remember seeing any of it for a few decades. It’s eradication obviously went well. So I had to resort to the Internet. Surprisingly it looked exactly like I remember.

I also know from pigment research that this family of cactus was specially cultivated in Pre Columbian America because they attracted the cochineal beetle, and was cultivated specifically to collect this insect from which the transparent bright red dye, we call Carmine, was extracted. So here was an opportunity to add a bit of colour using Schmincke’s aquadrop liquid watercolour ink. I love this stuff it’s really easy to use with a dip pen or waterbrush , mixes well and can easily be diluted down.

Saturday’s picture is pretty straightforward, inspired by my memory, checked up on the Internet and giving me an excuse to use coloured ink.