I drew this for my dad. It was good, felt easy and natural the whole way through. I didn't do any pencils before inks, just started drawing out boats on pages until I had one that felt good. It only took, like, four tries . After that I sketched in a really minimalistic background, and started coloring. I tried to "hold the pen loosely," and use only long flowing motions to make the basic contour lines of the piece instead of building them with little strokes like I usually do. I don't think my control is good enough to do a more complicated drawing like that yet, but it sure had a nice effect on this one.
Someone who saw this told me I should try watercolors. I think they might have a good idea. Who know, maybe my next post will be a (probably crappy) painting