NaNoDrawMo and Paper Frustrations

11/6/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen,
Arches 140 lb. paper

Thanks to Kate, I found out about NaNoDrawMo, the sketcher’s version of National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo. Instead of penning a novel during the month of November, sketchers are making at least 50 drawings. Since we’re nearly a week into November already, I feel a bit behind schedule starting today. Still, I try to sketch at least once a day anyway, so 50 sketches in 30 days is a challenging but not an unrealistic goal. I’m in! (At least I am now. I had a heck of a time trying to move my images into the NaNoDrawMo Flickr group.)

Trying to move images on Flickr was only one of my frustrations today. Another was paper. I just started using a signature of Arches 140-pound hot-press paper. Having heard good things about it from several people, I’ve been wanting to try Arches for a long time, and despite some hesitations about hot-press paper, I thought its smooth surface would be appropriate for fountain pen. Wrong! My typically smooth-flowing Sailor and Lamy pens kept skipping and resisting the surface, almost as if the paper were oily. Maybe the sizing (which is what painters love about Arches) is somehow incompatible with fountain pen inks.

11/6/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sailor pen, Arches paper

Since most watercolor painters probably draw their foundational sketches with pencil or go straight in with paint, that incompatibility might not even come up as an issue for most users. But since I love pen and ink as much as I love watercolor, I have to have paper that’s amenable to both media. Disappointing! I’ll use up the signature, since I still want to give it a shot with watercolor. But I’m going back to the Canson cold-press papers that I was using before for general use. 

And my third frustration today was fidgety patrons at Zoka Coffee. They are among my favorite “models” because they usually stare motionlessly into their various electronic screens for long periods. I managed five sketches (see the rest in the Flickr NaNoDrawMo group), but today everyone seemed to have ants in their pants.

11/6/13 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink, Sketchbook Project sketchbook