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| 6/10/16 inks, colored pencils, toned Strathmore paper |
Once again the Friday sketchers lucked out on weather, which
was supposed to be wet and windy this morning but turned out sunny. Driving to
the upper Queen Anne neighborhood, I thought about all the many choices of fun
things to sketch, including at least a couple of old churches. I chose the one
with the nice cupola, the Queen Anne Baptist Church. The bright sunlight helped
bring out all of its crisp shadows.
Suzanne was
nearby sketching the same church, so before she finished, I pulled out my
yellow Field Notes and a four-color ballpoint pen. Why ballpoint? Last Friday
was National Doughnut Day, and today
is – you guessed it – National Ballpoint Pen Day! (The holiday actually has a historic basis: On this day in 1943,
Laszlo and Gyorgy Biro, Hungarian brothers, patented their innovative writing
instrument that was once considered a luxury product.)
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| 6/10/16 ballpoint |
The last sketch, also in ballpoint, is one I had been
wanting to get for a while – the bronze sculpture of a puppy and his ball in
the plaza next to Trader Joe’s. (Named
Boomer, the sculpture was made by Georgia Gerber, the same artist who made the Pike Place Market’s Rachel the Pig.) I
started with the puppy, thinking that the woman chatting on her phone would
soon get off the ball and leave. When I realized she had plenty to say, I put
her in.
My ballpoint hatching skills leave much to be desired, but I’m
not giving up on it. The smooth, oily ink (the Biros’ original design was based
on printmakers’ ink, I just learned) is a very strange yet interesting medium.
I could have done the sketch in half the time if I’d used my usual fountain pen
washed with a quick swipe of the waterbrush, but after all, today isn’t
National Fountain Pen and Waterbrush Day (which I’m sure is coming; I know
Fountain Pen Day is in November).
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| 6/10/16 ballpoint, colored pencil |
Uni Jetstream Mini Review
As long as I’m talking about ballpoints, I have to mention the
one I’ve been using the past several months: a Uni Jetstream 4 & 1. Ever since I read The Art of Ballpoint, I’ve
been trying to practice hatching with ballpoint (though not as often as I should
if I want to improve). I started by using the throwaway Bic stick pens I’m
always taking from hotel rooms. I hate the sour smell some of those inks have,
though, and I wanted more ink colors. For a brief time I used a Bic four-color pen because it was
nostalgic from my childhood, but the cheesy color-choosing mechanism annoyed me.
It didn’t take long to fall down the Google hole of the vast world of “multi pens” – ballpoint and other types of pens that
deliver two, three, four and more ink colors in one pen. I tried the Pilot Dr. Grip too, which uses refills
that are very similar to the Uni Jetstream’s. In both pens, the odorless inks
flow more smoothly and with no blobbing or skipping compared to the basic Bic. I
prefer the Uni Jetstream to the Dr. Grip for its better-designed mechanism. They
both come with a 0.5mm mechanical pencil, too.
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