Vanity

1/10/18 Feeling blue -- and brown.

In addition to still lives, another thing I don’t particularly enjoy but find myself doing a lot of in winter is self-portraits (when I first started sketching, I made a hundred of them). Of course, sketching any portrait is challenging, but there is something about drawing one’s own face that is especially daunting, and it has nothing to do with drawing.

1/9/18 Channeling my inner Obi-wan Kenobi

It’s vanity.

Looking at myself in the mirror only minutes after my first coffee is bad enough, but then to have to scrutinize every flaw and commit it to paper is humbling indeed. The upside, however, of starting the day with a selfie is that whatever else you draw the rest of the day is bound to be less frightening.

As long as I’m humbling myself, here are a couple of selfies from that hundred I made six years ago.

1/6/12

7/8/12

My Fountain Pen Best Friends

My fountain pen BFFs.

Pencils – both graphite and colored – have been getting most of my drawing love the past year or so. But in the second week of InkTober when I decided to switch from ballpoint to fountain pen, I was reminded (yet again – I had a similar InkTober revelation two years ago) of how much I love sketching with the latter. It’s not that I forget, exactly, but since the fountain pen was one of the first tools I started drawing with, I sometimes take it for granted. While pencils, colored pencils and brush pens all have unique qualities that I love, a fountain pen delivers an unequivocal line matched by none (at least in my hand). Unlike any other drawing instrument, it seems to express my hand’s movement and direction most closely – like it or not. There’s no erasing, covering up or backing out. I don’t always love what it reveals, but like a brutally honest friend, it never falsely flatters me, and it can still surprise me with its elegance. So today’s Fountain Pen Day post is dedicated to my BFF pens:

Nos. 1 and 2: Sailor Naginata Fude de Mannen. My epic search nearly three years ago led me to No. 2 (1911 full size in matte black), and when I sourced a second one (1911 full size in standard black), grabbed it, too. ‘Nuff said.

No. 3: Franklin-Christoph Fude. My newest fountain pen, it is the most surprising in that I did not have high expectations when I bought it. Besides my beloved Sailors, the F-C fude has proven to be the only acceptable fude I will use.

No. 4: Pilot Posting. I don’t often have need for an ultra-fine or even fine fountain pen when drawing because when I have one in my hand, I find myself getting too fiddly with details in a way that is not flattering to my sketches. But every now and then I need a line finer than what my fudes can produce, especially if I have the urge for line work that mimics traditional pen-and-ink hatching. Pilot’s under-rated posting nib does the job.

No. 5: Sailor Cross Point. Although it doesn’t have quite the same range of line widths as my fudes, the Sailor Cross Point is even smoother (which I thought was hardly possible). Because of its more limited range, it doesn’t get as much sketching mileage, but I still take it out now and then to remind me of what a joy it is to use. Most of the time it stays inked up on my desk as my favorite journal-writing pen. I also love it for sentimental reasons: It’s the only high-end fountain pen I purchased in Tokyo. 

Back to the Center of the Universe

6/25/17 water-soluble colored pencils, Tombow marker

I worried that news reports of dire traffic conditions from freeway lane closures and Pride events would keep sketchers away from the Center of the Universe, but I needn’t have. Even predicted temperatures in the mid-90s yesterday brought a good turnout of USk Seattle to the statue of Lenin and the rest of the Fremont neighborhood’s funky environment.

 

6/25/17 ink, colored pencils

Although I knew I had sketched Lenin before, I didn’t realize until I checked my blog that it had been as long as four years ago at my first outing to Fremont (a month later I sketched him again during Gail and Frank’s USk workshop). It was high time to sketch him again, and I did it first thing while the morning heat was still tolerable.

For the high noon sun, I knew exactly where I wanted to sketch: In the cool shade of the Aurora Bridge, where the Fremont Troll waits quietly. Although a troll under a bridge is supposed to be malevolent, the only other time I sketched him, also four years ago, he struck me as more curious than scary. Yesterday I thought I saw some surprise and endless patience in his single eye (now shiny silver, though in 2013 it was apparently red) as tourists climb all over him, day in, day out. 

Speaking of patience, I was losing mine as every five minutes or so, a tour bus would come by and disgorge a pile of said tourists so they could photograph each other. The sketch took me much longer than usual because I had to keep waiting for the view to clear. Still, I was in the shade with a cool breeze blowing through. Even on the hottest day of the year, I’d rather be sketching than not.

Follow-Up Review: Baron Fig Paper

Baron Fig Vanguard: standard edition at left (the plain gray covered
with my own stickers) and the limited-edition Infinity.

Ever since I supported its Kickstarter campaign several years ago, New York stationery maker Baron Fig has captured my attention on and off. The hardbound Confidant I initially reviewed held more promise than usefulness, but I was happy that I held onto it. Nearly two years later when I became interested in sketching with graphite, that notebook’s paper turned out to be one of my favorites.

Spotting my review about graphite sketching, Andi at Baron Fig got in touch asking permission to tweet it. I mentioned that I was considering trying a more portable softcover Vanguard, and she kindly offered to send me one in the same A5-ish Flagship size. (She also sent an Archer pencil, which had been recently released.) All winter as I sketched the graphite-gray landscape, the Vanguard became my everyday-carry pencil sketchbook.

Fast-forward to a couple of months ago, when Ana at the Well-Appointed Desk noted that the paper in the limited Black Box edition had changed – it was now toothier and more creamy than white. I was actually fond of the old Vanguard’s slightly-but-not-overly-toothy surface, so I wasn’t sure if I’d find the change to be an improvement or not. A short time later, the next Vanguard limited-edition Infinity came out, and I was curious enough about the new paper to order one.

Initially I was a little disappointed by the additional tooth, but I got over that quickly because I discovered other differences that were definite improvements. I ran through my usual battery of media tests – graphite, water-soluble colored pencil, fountain pen, brush pen, Pitt marker. Although the weight (unspecified by BF) feels the same, the new paper has more sizing, so the water-soluble materials washed nicely when brushed lightly with water instead of sinking into the paper immediately. On the old paper, the reverse side shows a little bleed-through where I gave the scribbles a wash. The new paper shows almost nothing. The paper is still not intended for wet media, of course, so the page buckled where I got it wet, but not too badly.

Old paper

New paper

 

Old paper (reverse)

New paper (reverse)

Perhaps a more significant consequence of this paper change is greater durability where the binding is stitched. When sketching on location with a softcover sketchbook, my habit is to fold the side that I’m not using backward, making the book easier to hold with one hand. When I did that with the old Vanguard, I noticed that the pages would tear away a bit from the stitching, especially near the bottom. I’m not seeing that at all with the new Vanguard. Perhaps the binding is exactly the same, but the paper might be slightly stronger, so it’s not tearing from the stress of bending the page away from the stitching.

Old binding

New binding

Incidentally, one thing I really appreciate about all of Baron Fig’s notebooks (hardcover and softcover) is that the bindings open completely flat, which makes them easier to use as well as scan.

Tombow marker on new Vanguard paper

Since the paper is not appropriate for heavy washes, I wouldn’t make the Vanguard my standard, everyday sketchbook. But now that I know the paper can stand up to various media besides graphite, I’m using it more. Last month when I took Sue Heston’s urban sketching workshop, she had suggested tonal markers, so I grabbed pigment-ink-based Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens and water-based Tombow Dual Brush markers to use in the new Vanguard. The paper held up to both types of markers beautifully with no bleed-through at all, even where I applied the markers solidly. (I don’t have any alcohol-based markers to test, but I’m guessing they would still bleed through.) It’s great for fountain pen line drawings washed lightly for shading, too.

While the gray cover, standard edition Vanguard is available in a choice of rulings, including blank, the limited-edition Infinity is available only with dot-grid ruling. (Strangely, the pale gray dots apparently resist water-based marker ink, because the dots show up white. The Pitt markers obscured the dots completely.)

The standard edition pocket-size Vanguard is also available with blank paper. Hmmm . . . that might be worth trying now.

Updated 5/30/17: Baron Fig just came out with a limited-edition Vanguard called Clear Sky. Not only are the covers beautiful – the paper inside is blank! I’m going to grab some before they sell out.

Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens

Fountain pen ink and colored pencil

Off to the UK and the Manchester Symposium!

7/13/16 ink, colored pencils

We’re off on our first trip to the United Kingdom! Our itinerary includes London, Manchester and Bath, England, and several days in northern Wales. I keep hearing that summer in those parts is not very different from summer in these parts – mostly moderate in temperature but possibly wet and cool – so it’ll be just like home (well, except for the Edwardian castles, ancient Roman baths and warm beer).

The main event on my itinerary is, of course, the 7th International Urban Sketchers Symposium in Manchester, where I’ll be serving as one of four correspondents to report on the event. I’m mostly thrilled and excited, but I’m also a bit anxious and nervous. With two symposiums under my belt, I’m familiar with the intensity of being immersed in urban sketching for three-and-a-half solid days. I already know the fun of becoming reacquainted with worldwide sketchers and meeting ones I’ve known only online. The challenge of reporting on all of that, however, will be a very new experience.

I’ve practiced the mechanics of mobile blogging. My correspondents team and I have set up a Whatsapp group on our phones to facilitate communication. Heck, we even have a spreadsheet color-coded to the workshop map so that we can cover as many activities as possible. I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be! Wish me luck!

I won’t be blogging here while I’m gone, but on July 27 – 30, please check out the daily posts of the correspondents team on the Urban Sketchers Symposium blog. We’ll be sharing links to our posts on the Manchester Symposium Facebook page. You can keep up with the rest of my UK adventures on Instagram and Flickr. And you can also search for the hashtag ‪#‎uskmanchester2016 on social media to find sketches and photos by all participants.

Happy sketching!

Perspective in the Round

5/11/16 brush pen

For our last “Quick Sketch” class, we met at the Seattle Center where we would have a wider scope of on-location subject matter to practice on. Inside the large Armory, instructor Bill Evans talked more about perspective as it relates to a wide and deep space – how to place elements in a composition to indicate relative depth. Since I often practice this type of perspective while I’m on the same level as my subject matter, I gave myself an additional challenge by sitting up at one of the high-stooled tables. Sketching some of my classmates as well as tables and chairs in the distance, I focused on how my slight elevation changed the relative placement of people and objects in the composition (at right).

5/11/16 inks, colored pencils

It was another gorgeous day, so we (OK, mostly I) were restless to sketch outside! Moving outdoors, Bill assigned us to choose a composition that included enough depth that we could incorporate various methods we’d learned throughout the course to indicate that depth, such as including greater detail and higher contrast in the foreground with lower contrast and atmospheric perspective in the distance. Some of what he’d been teaching echoed what I learned in Liz Steel’s Edges course – an ideal way to reinforce the concepts solidly in my brain. I chose a view of some foreground trees and a few people on a bench facing downtown Seattle’s skyline (at left). In the center of the composition are some glass flower sculptures outside Chihuly Garden and Glass, which I later regretted drawing in ink because that brought them too far forward.

The second assignment was to choose a challenging perspective study such as circles seen as ellipses – an example he’d just shown while we were still inside the Armory. The best example of subject matter at the Center, Bill said, was the International Fountain. If viewed by a bird flying over, it would look like concentric circles, but from the ground, it’s a series of huge ellipses. I didn’t leave myself enough time to tackle the fountain, but I found another subject that was nearly as challenging in the same way: the top of the Space Needle (below).

Sketching it from a sunny bench, I pondered what might be the key lesson of Bill’s excellent course: Perspective? Single-line drawings? Getting human proportions right? No. The most important lesson was this: Sketch, sketch and sketch some more.

Got it!

5/11/16 brush pen, ink

Bill Evans demos using an embroidery
hoop to help him sketch on a T-shirt!

Two Thoughts at Cloud City

5/10/16 ink

In addition to the usual umbrella café tables, Cloud City Coffee’s patio has a tent with picnic tables under it, so you can choose to sit in either the sun or the shade. This morning I did both, moving around at will to vary the views.

I’m still thinking about some lessons from Liz Steel’s SketchingNow Edges. In this online course, Liz talks about “lost edges” – deliberately avoiding drawing some lines or “edges” in a composition so that the viewer has to fill in the part that’s undrawn, becoming a more active participant in the viewing. As I sketched the young man eating a sandwich with his back to the sun, I couldn’t really see much of the shoulder that was away from me. Typically I would just fudge what I can’t see and draw it anyway, but this seemed like an opportunity to let the unseen shoulder remain lost.

5/10/16 ink, colored pencil

That was one thought this mid-morning. The other was the fact that it was 65 degrees and sunny on May 10. When I sat in the shade it was cool enough that I was glad I had my sweatshirt; when I moved to a sunny table, I was happy in a T-shirt but didn’t break a sweat. I was wondering if there’s any place on earth where it’s like this all year round – the absolute perfectest weather for outdoor sketching – and if there is, how soon I could move there. 

5/10/16 ink, white gel pen

5/10/16 brush pen, white gel pen

Idle Moments

3/16/16 Zig marker, fountain pen, Field Notes

I was meeting a friend to walk around Green Lake, and I arrived three minutes early. It was enough time to pull out the Field Notes notebook I keep in the tiny bag I take when I’m fitness walking. The only sketching materials I keep in it are a brown Kuretake Zig brush marker and a Pilot Petit1 fountain pen, but they were just what I needed to capture the long, tangled limbs of this bare tree. (By the way, that Pilot Petit1 hadn’t been opened or used in months, yet when I pulled the cap off today, it wrote on its first stroke. That little pen’s idle time never ceases to amaze!)

10/28/15 ink

Speaking of idle time, I used to have a lot of it whenever I ended up having to wait for other people. I’m no longer familiar with the concept, though, because I fill most of my otherwise idle moments with small sketches. A few months ago, my haircutter had been detained, so while I waited for her, I sketched the lilies in the waiting area. Last fall while we were parked in the passenger pickup lot, waiting for a visitor to get her bag, I sketched a nearby fir tree. Little pocket notebooks are endlessly entertaining that way.

9/12/15 water-soluble colored pencils

Dragonstooth

2/2/16 ink, Platinum Carbon fountain pen, colored pencils

As much as I would rather be sketching outdoors than in, on rainy days, I do enjoy being at my desk. It gives me an opportunity to work on tedious, detailed drawings like this scaly dude I copied from the label on a bottle of Elysian Dragonstooth Stout. I can color to my heart’s content with colored pencils, which give me the same joyful color fix I used to get from crayons in kindergarten (though a bit more time-consuming). 

Rainy days were made for this.

So 2015

1/29/16 ink, colored pencil, Zig marker

A friend on Facebook recently posted a photo of his empty dinner plate: “Posting pictures of meals before you eat them is so 2015.”

You already know that I don’t have much of a track record for sketching my food (though I’m often well-intentioned). On Friday night we went out for sushi, and I would have loved to have shown you the delicious, colorful and beautifully arranged meal I scarfed down. But that would have been so 2015.

Third Santa: Score!

12/17/15 inks, colored pencils

Despite getting a late start on the season, this afternoon I scored my third Santa!

After meeting friends for lunch at Southcenter, I knew I should be getting back to Seattle pronto if I wanted to beat rush-hour traffic (which starts about mid-afternoon), but I couldn’t resist a quick dash through the mall to find Santa. Little brother started bawling and jumped off the big guy’s lap almost immediately. His older sister, however, was happy to have Santa to herself, reciting a long list of gift ideas.

I paid for that sketch with a long, crawling commute, but Santa was worth it.

There’s still a week yet before Christmas . . . last year by this time, I had scored three Santas, too. Think I can go for a record-breaking fourth?

Post-Travel Follow-up, Part 2: Sketch Kit

Items most-often used in Japan.

As is my personal tradition, here is my post-travel follow-up reporting on how accurately my sketch kit met my needs during my trip to Japan. To see everything I brought, please refer to my travel prep post (and photo at the bottom of this page).

• Looking back on that post now, I see that much of my kit prep was based on all the fall color I anticipated seeing in Kyoto, which turned out to be disappointing. Unlike five years ago when we went at the very same time of year, many trees were still green, and the main color we saw was in the Fuji foothills, where we spent very little time. I had brought a waterbrush filled with a custom ink mix of Diamine Poppy and Diamine Red Dragon to quickly paint the red Japanese maples we had hoped to see; alas, I hardly used it. Same for the Pilot Parallel filled with an orange mix of Diamine Autumn Oak and Iroshizuku Yu-yake.
•  The rainbow pencil got used once, and the Koh-i-Noor Tri-Tones not at all. Surprisingly, I didn’t use watercolors much, either. If I had seen as much fall color as I’d hoped to, I’m sure I would have pulled the paints out more often; as it was, colored pencils and the Pilot Parallel with orange ink were sufficient for most sketches.
•  The rest of my over-prep was due to my usual anxiety about running out of ink; I didn’t come close to emptying any of my fountain pens, even the one filled with waterproof Platinum Carbon Black, so I needn’t have worried. And OK, I did bring along a couple more pens than I really needed (but if I hadn’t brought and used them, I would have gone through the ink in the remaining pens more quickly!). I guess this is just general carryover from my day-to-day need to carry more pens than I “need”!

Shown above are the items I used most frequently during my 19 days in Japan:

1. My Sailor “grail” fude pen with Sailor Doyou ink (an easy pen to reach for when I sketched people on trains and subways because I’m so comfortable with it)
2. A Sailor fude pen with Diamine Chocolate Brown ink (for the same reason as the other Sailor, above)
3. A waterbrush filled with cool-gray Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun for shadows (I use that brush a lot, whether I’m traveling or not).
4. Pilot pen with Posting nib filled with waterproof Platinum Carbon Black ink. I had initially planned to bring the Pilot with the Waverly nib, which I’ve recently grown so fond of. But at the last minute I switched to the Posting nib because its very fine nib uses so little ink (an ink-shortage anxiety reaction).
5. A Zebra double-ended brush pen, which I had discovered as a favorite for life drawing only a couple weeks before I left for Japan. I wasn’t sure whether it was going to make the final cut, since I was also bringing my usual Kuretake brush pen along, but I ended up taking it after all. And what a dark horse that Zebra turned out to be! I discovered almost immediately that the Zebra’s strangely spongy (and annoyingly squeaky) brush tips are ideal for making quick sketches of architecture, trees, wide urban landscapes, people – anything. I learned in Himeji that while my first sketch of the castle using the fine-point Posting nib felt constrained and rigid, my second try with the Zebra felt much more expressive (though perhaps less accurate). While I’ve always loved the organic look of the brush strokes I get with the Kuretake brush pen’s real bristles, the Zebra’s spongy felt tips gave me just enough additional control that the pen turned out to be extremely versatile. And having both fine and broad tips in one pen makes it all the more versatile.
6. And finally the best packing choice of all: the vermilion colored pencil! Selected specifically because I knew from experience and photos that Japan is full of torii gates and pagodas, that Caran d’Ache Supracolor II water-soluble pencil gave me quick, convenient swipes of bright red-orange many times without having to pull out watercolors. A little color research about the place I’m visiting goes a long way toward helping me select the right colored pencils, which save time and make standing sketches easier.

My ongoing travel successes included:

• My usual Stefano sketchbook (I filled seven signatures again, just like I did in France and Brazil).
• My usual Rickshaw Bagworks Zero messenger bag (both the sketchbook and the bag have been with me on four continents so far!), with one weather-related issue (see yesterday's post).
• A simple tote to carry daily essentials that don’t fit in the Rickshaw. In Japan I had fewer things to carry than in most locations, because things like bottled water (and just about any other beverage you could want, including canned hot coffee and beer!) are so easily available from vending machines on literally every street corner. Conversely, I always had to carry my own small hand towel (most Japanese residents do), because public restrooms generally do not supply paper towels (or even hand dryers in some places).
• A Rhodia Rhodiarama pocket notebook, which served as my writing/collage travel journal, memo pad, vocabulary reminder and catch-all sketchbook.

The above four things have consistently worked so well for me on all my travels the past few years that I’m happy not to have to consider changes (maybe ever!).

The complete sketch kit I took to Japan.

This Time, Color

10/22/15 inks, Zig marker

Eighth Northwest between Crown Hill and Ballard is the same street where I spotted and sketched my first urban couch just about a month ago. That time, I had gone there looking for some fall color but didn’t see much.

Today the trees didn’t disappoint. Most still have quite a bit of green, but they are certainly turning. Of course, this time of year, another sight is also certain: campaign signs.

By the way, what do you think of this photograph of my sketch taken onsite instead of my usual scanned images? Since I’ve been participating in Inktober, I’ve been shooting my daily ink sketches onsite so that I can upload them to social media easily and immediately. The images aren’t as clear as scans, but sometimes I like showing my subject in the background. Do you like this? Or would you prefer a scan?

Beating the System

10/19/15 Inks

When I drive down this street in my neighborhood during the summer, these five maple trees all look similar. Today each showed unique coloring patterns.

I’m no longer frustrated about having to limit my use of color for Inktober; I figured out how to beat the system. As I learned on Saturday, all it takes is having lots of pens and inks (both of which are in ample supply at my house.) Yes, this sketch would have been easier to do with watercolors, but getting all my color from inks is challenging (and fun) in a different way.

Just Because

10/17/15 inks

On my walks around the neighborhood, I’ve noticed so many varieties of maple trees (it’s not called the Maple Leaf neighborhood for nothing!) – each with a slightly different leaf shape or coloring pattern. Some are barely turning at all, and others are already brown and ready to drop (or have dropped).

Ever since Inktober started, I’ve been wanting to make some colorful drawings using inks only – no paint, colored pencils or anything else – only inks. The maple leaves were just the right subject, so I gathered pens and brush pens containing seven ink colors (no, I didn’t even have to ink up any new pens – they were all already in my bag or on my journal-writing table) to sketch as many leaves as I could in an hour. All leaves were sketched while still on the trees, not picked from the ground.

I had an interesting encounter during my sketchabout. Standing on the lower steps leading up to a house, I was sketching a leaf on a lovely Japanese maple growing on one side of the stairway. Just then the owner happened to pull up and parked in the driveway. She came out of the car looking very cautious and even suspicious, and as she approached, she said, “Is something wrong. . .?” looking at me intently.

“Oh, not at all – I’m just sketching your lovely maple!” I said, smiling and showing her my sketchbook.

10/17/15 inks

She stared at my sketchbook and then at me, and then said, “Why?”

“It’s so pretty! Why not?”

After thinking a bit longer, she finally broke into a smile, complimented the sketch, and turned to go up to her house. It’s as if she couldn’t quite comprehend someone standing out on her steps to sketch a leaf just because it was pretty.

Pens used (from left): Pilot Prera, Sailor Candy (with replaced fude nib),
Pilot Parallel 2.4mm, Lamy Nexx, Pilot 78G and three brush pens.
Inks used: Sailor Okuyama, DeAtramentis Moss Green, Diamine
Chocolate Brown, Diamine Autumn Oak, Sailor Tokiwa-matsu,
Private Reserve Avocado, Iroshizuku Chiku-rin.