Freeway Park

9/2/18 Freeway Park waterfall

Greg’s nephew was in town over the weekend for the PAX West game developers’ con, so we met him and a friend for lunch near the Convention Center. Afterwards we walked them back to the venue and wandered around inside, a bit staggered by the number of people and amused by costumed individuals. I would have enjoyed trying to sketch some of the more stationary characters (see below), but in general, they were all passing through too quickly.

Instead of chasing gamers, we walked outside to Freeway Park, where it was a gloriously sunny Sunday afternoon. I only had a few minutes, but I wanted to capture one of the park’s several waterfalls. Last year when USk Seattle met at the park, the water features were all dry that day. The rush of falling water throughout the park masked the roar of Interstate 5 just below us.

One of many interesting characters we saw inside the
Convention Center.

Fountain Pen Review: Franklin-Christoph Fude Nib

The Franklin-Christoph fude nib

Two-and-a-half years ago, I undertook an epic search for the ideal drawing fountain pen – one that would give me a wide range of line variation and fluidity. Eventually I found my grail: the Sailor Naginata Fude de Mannen, a premium pen in Sailor’s specialty line that is worth every penny. (I like it so much, in fact, that a while later when I had heard that Sailor’s specialty nibs were becoming harder and harder to find, I bought a second so that I could always have one in my bag for waterproof ink and one for water-soluble ink.)

The Sailor Naginata fude has been on my Top 10 list every year since I bought my first, and I’ve been so happy with it that I rarely use other pens. Occasionally I’ll ink up one or another pen from my epic search just for variety, but by the next inking I always go back to a Sailor. I don’t feel a need to keep looking for a possibly better nib, and I don’t mind feeling smug about something that serves me well nearly every day.

However, that doesn’t mean I ignore new nibs that appear on my fountain pen radar. Several months ago, something very interesting caught my attention: the Franklin-Christoph fude nib.

Franklin-Christoph model 20 Marietta pen body
with fude nib

This American pen manufacturer wasn’t new to me; in fact, Franklin-Christoph’s music nib was one I considered during my epic search. An appealing feature of F-C’s designs is that most of its pen bodies are compatible with multiple nibs, so if you own one body, you can buy a variety of nibs, and each would be at a price much lower than buying a whole new pen. When I learned about the Georgia company’s specialty fude nib, I realized I could buy it and pop it onto the Model 20 Marietta pen body I already owned – sweet!

There was one catch: The Franklin-Christoph fude nib was being made on a very limited basis; like Sailor’s fude, it is difficult to obtain (though not nearly as elusive as the Sailor, which seems nearly impossible to find now except on the secondary market).

I put my name on the “interested” list. A couple of months later, I happened to be waiting in the TSA line before boarding my flight to the Chicago Urban Sketchers symposium when I received an e-mail informing me that a very limited number was available for purchase. I knew these would be snapped up quickly, so I ordered my fude nib right then and there while standing in line!

I wanted to try the F-C nib mostly out of curiosity but, I admit, also with a bit of skepticism. Up to that point, all the fude (which means brush in Japanese) nibs that I was aware of were made in either Japan or China. This makes sense because the curved or bent nib is designed to mimic the up-and-down fluid brush strokes of Asian calligraphy. Using a fude nib for western writing isn’t ideal (as much as I love drawing with it, I don’t enjoy writing with it). Since this was the first non-Asian-made fude nib I’d heard of, I couldn’t help looking a bit askance. But after giving the F-C a solid two months of testing, I am happy to say that it’s an excellent fude.

Left: Sailor Naginata fude; right: Franklin-Christoph fude

It’s important to point out that, unlike my Sailor Naginata fude, which is made of 21kt gold, the Franklin-Christoph nib is made of steel. F-C’s nib isn’t quite as smooth and fluid as Sailor’s, but it’s not fair to compare an apple with an orange. The Sailor Naginata also has a gentler curve and a rounded tip that impart an exceptional writing and drawing quality. I love it. That said, if I hadn’t been spoiled by that Sailor for more than two years, I’d say the F-C fude is the smoothest I’ve used. It’s far and away smoother than Sailor’s budget-priced steel fude models (which I had used for years before upgrading to the gold version). I’ve also tried a China-made Duke fude that is remarkably smooth for a steel nib, but it leaks, runs dry and is unreliable in other ways.

The Franklin-Christoph was both smooth and completely reliable right out of the box. It has remained so after several inkings with both waterproof (Platinum Carbon Black) and water-soluble inks.

Line variation comparison

But what about the most important part – its line variability? Compared to my Sailor Naginata, the F-C fude’s range is very similar: Reversed, the nib is a bit finer than the reversed Sailor. It’s also wetter than the Sailor, so when I’ve used its broadest angle, I have to remember to allow extra time for the plentiful outlay of ink to dry. It moves effortlessly and fluidly across the page, whether on toothy Stillman & Birn Nova paper or smooth S&B Epsilon.

While I will not be permanently swapping out one of my Sailors for the Franklin-Christoph anytime soon (those Sailor Naginatas will have to pried from my cold, dead fingers), it is more than a worthy stand-in for the elusive Naginata fude de Mannen (which currently has a multi-year wait in the US). In fact, at $55 for the nib (plus $105 to $175 for a body; you’ll need one that fits a No. 6 nib), it’s a fantastic value – a much better value than the premium-priced Sailor unless its golden smoothness is important to you.

10/20/17 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Every now and then a blog reader who is seeking a Sailor Naginata fude will ask me if I know of a source, and I have to give them the bad news. But now I’m going to suggest that they get a Franklin-Christoph instead of torturing themselves with an indefinite wait for a Sailor. It’s not the same, but it’s pretty dang good.

(All sketches shown here were done with my Franklin-Christoph fude pen and Platinum Carbon Black ink except as noted. I used Field Notes notebooks except as noted. I’ve been doing most of my InkTober sketches with it the past couple weeks, so you’ve seen some of these before.)

8/8/17 Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo ink, S&B Epsilon paper (from photo)

10/11/17 Maple Leaf neighborhood, S&B Nova

8/8/17 Green Lake neighborhood

10/17/17 Montlake neighborhood

10/19/17

Washelli Fountain

8/13/15 inks, watercolor, colored pencil, white acrylic marker

Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park occupies both sides of Aurora Avenue North at around North 110^th. The last few times I sketched there, I stayed on the east side of Aurora. This morning I decided to explore the west side.

Unlike the east side, which has an interesting Dough Boy memorial and angel statuary as well as a military section, the west side is relatively simple by comparison. I drove around a while looking for a sketch, and down in a valley surrounded by trees, I spotted a small fountain. Mounted on a pile of mossy rocks, the fountain was pouring water into a somewhat murky-looking pond. Rows and rows of small, flat markers were nearby.

Despite the heavy traffic on Aurora, the cemetery was serene. It’s become one of my favorite places when I want a quiet, undisturbed moment to sketch and enjoy the cool shade of large trees.

Technical note: I’m really liking the Molotow white acrylic marker I had picked up impulsively at the Sennelier store. It works much more consistently than the white Uni-ball Signo gel ink pen I had been using, especially over watercolor. I don’t think I could have sketched the fountain’s water today without it.

A Horse, Some Cranes, Firemen and a Waterfall in Pioneer Square

5/8/15 Sailor Doyou and mixed gray inks, Caran d'Ache
Museum water-soluble colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Although the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (actually a small museum) was the main destination for the Friday sketchers, the “good weather contingency plan” was anywhere in Pioneer Square. I decided the day was too sunny to sketch indoors!

While waiting for others to arrive just outside the Klondike museum, I sketched the three-dimensional horse sculpture that used to be the sign for a saddlery back when there were as many horses as vehicles going through Pioneer Square. The building owner had the good sense to save the horse, which now stands over the 88 Keys Dueling Piano Sports Bar.

With my warm-up done, I moved on to my objective for the day: The construction site for 200 Occidental, destined to be “155,000 square feet of office space, underground parking for 68 cars and 15,000 square feet of retail” next to Occidental Square. OK, OK, I know progress marches on, but I’m saddened that this view of the Smith Tower, one of my favorite Seattle buildings, will soon be blocked. Someday I’ll come back and sketch the “after” view.

5/8/15 various inks, Museum pencils

A short distance away is Waterfall Garden Park, a little gem of an urban park that you could easily miss walking by if it weren’t for the sound of rushing water from the 22-foot waterfall. I used to eat my brown bag lunches there during the summer when I worked downtown a long time ago, but I hadn’t been there in years. Wouldn’t you know it – the same construction cranes from 200 Occidental were visible behind the waterfall.

After the meetup to share sketches and after lunch with Kate, I still hadn’t gotten enough sketching on this gorgeous day (70 degrees by then!). I went back to Occidental Park to sketch the Fallen Firefighters Memorial made up of four life-size bronze figures (the dude at left is not made of bronze). Erected in 1998 for the four firefighters who died in an International District warehouse in 1995, the memorial honors all Seattle firefighters who have died in the line of duty. And ha! – there are those same cranes again! (Even when I’m not sketching them, I’m sketching them.)

5/8/15 Platinum Carbon and mixed gray inks, watercolor, Museum pencils

5/8/15 various inks, Museum pencils

Tight People, Loose Trees at U Village

10/24/14 India ink, twig, watercolor, Canson XL 140 lb.

The University Village Starbucks was supposed to be only the meeting place for the Friday ad hoc urban sketchers, not the sketching destination. But this morning started out cold enough that I decided to stay and warm up – literally – with a cup of coffee and as many sketches of people as I could do in half an hour. Inspired by Melanie Reim’s loose yet angular style, I was trying to loosen up, but I’m not sure I succeeded. I can usually get loose with figures that are moving quickly, but I have a much harder time with faces. I’m going to keep working on that.

Sufficiently warmed, I went out to the village fountain, which I had sketched several months ago when I was doing temporary battle with an ongoing sketching nemesis – fountains and falling water. Trying to reserve the paper’s white for running water is always the tough part! Getting an odd reverse logic in my head, I pulled out my twigs and India ink, somehow thinking I might be able to indicate the white water by using dark ink for the negative spaces. A good concept poorly executed – but at least the twig loosened up my lines.

10/24/14 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink

That done, I turned my stool 90 degrees and spotted some maples past their prime but still blazing in the sunshine, as well as a couple of lamp posts. Two years ago, I had sketched the same type of lamp posts elsewhere at U Village, and I remembered how easy it was to get caught up in the trim and individual blossoms in the hanging baskets. I still had my twig and ink out, so I let ‘em rip. Sufficiently loosened up by the trees in the previous sketch, I was happy with the way the blunt twig stressed the shadows without letting me fuss with details.

10/24/14 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink

10/24/14 India ink, twig

The Friday ad hoc sketchers bundle up for a chilly morning at U Village.
Top row from left: Robin, Nilda, Gwen, Natalie, Linda, Anne.
Bottom: Tina and Peggy.

U Village Fountain

6/2/14 Platinum Carbon and Diamine Grey inks, watercolor, water-soluble colored pencil, Zig marker, Pitt Artist Pen, Uniball opaque white gel pen, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

A couple of years ago I sketched an interesting sculptural stone fountain at University Village. Then last summer I decided that fountains and other forms of flowing water should be a sketching nemesis, so I went to U Village with the intention of sketching it again, but apparently I got confused and couldn’t find it (I sketched a different water feature instead). I was so flummoxed that I even wondered if it had been removed during the shopping complex’s recent remodel.

In the U-District for an errand this afternoon, I stopped in at U Village, determined to find that fountain again. There it was, in the same place as ever. And sketching flowing water is still just as challenging as ever.

Some things don’t change, even when I wish they would.

Worldwide Photowalk

10/5/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Strathmore 140 lb. paper

I’m not a photographer, but when I first heard about the Worldwide Photowalk that was to be held on Oct. 5, I thought it might be a fun sketch opportunity. I had no idea how many would show up for the Seattle event – hundreds? Thousands? Five? – nor whether it would be sketchworthy. But the meeting location was Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill on a beautiful afternoon, so I knew I couldn’t lose.

I arrived at the appointed time, and about 25 or 30 people with cameras milled about. Unlike Urban Sketchers, who meet at the end of a sketch gathering to take a photo together, the photographers did their group photo first. I had just started a sketch of the fountain when they gathered there, so their timing was perfect (or mine was).

Bellevue Botanical Garden



8/23/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn sketchbook

Only three sketchers showed up for the Friday ad hoc gathering, so we rattled around in the spacious Bellevue Botanical Garden. Currently under major renovation to make it even larger, the BBG is deep and full of tall trees, making it seem more like an arboretum than a traditional garden.

 

Still at work on my latest sketching nemesis – fountains and other sources of streaming water – I first tackled a lovely series of waterfalls in the Yao Japanese Garden area, where the wide leaves of the Darmera Peltata opened like umbrellas beside the rocks.

 

8/23/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor

8/23/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor

Next I went up near the visitor’s center, where several bushes of Rosa Rugosa still had a few white blossoms that the bees were happy about. But most of the roses had already given way to red and orange rose hips as big and bright as cherry tomatoes. Whenever I’m out urban sketching, I feel compelled to capture the “big picture” and tell more of the story (whatever that is), but in a large garden like BBG, sometimes the tiny details of rose hips and bees tell a story, too. (Visit Kate's blog to see her sketch of me sketching these.)

 

In the few remaining minutes before our meeting time to share sketches, I wandered over to the construction area and dashed off a large bed of black-eyed Susans lending color to heavy machinery and construction workers taking a lunch break.

8/23/13 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink, Zig marker, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Missing Fountain

8/13/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Where the heck did that fountain go?

A year ago I sketched an interesting fountain at University Village, where I had used a white opaque gel pen to depict the streams of water. I wanted another crack at my latest sketching nemesis, fountains (or, more specifically, the water streaming out of them), and depicting the water with paint only. I walked around U Village at least three times this afternoon looking for that fountain before I figured out that it must have been removed with the ongoing construction there. So I had to keep looking for something else to sketch.

Not exactly a fountain, this “water feature” looks like a brick wall, but water pours out from between the bricks as if the wall is leaking. Painting the water wasn’t going the way I had hoped, but I found myself getting more interested in sketching the young woman sunning her legs, anyway.

Fountains: The New Sketching Nemesis

8/12/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

Before you read further, follow this link to a sketch of a small fountain at Fremont Coffee Company by Gail Wong. When I first saw this sketch last night, I was stunned by how beautifully she captured the water streaming out of the fountain. The stream is partly transparent to objects in the background, yet it also appears white as splashing, flowing water often does. I asked her if she used gouache, white ink or some other opaque white medium to capture that stream so accurately, and this was her response: “I saved the white of the paper for the water and put light washes of the blue mix without eliminating the white of the page.”

 

She makes it sound so simple! Imagining that the technique she described has got to be one of the most difficult things to accomplish with watercolor, I was intrigued and determined to give it a try (so call me a masochist).

 

I knew of a fountain at Northgate’s Thornton Place with multiple streams of water, so I gave it a shot. I was right: It’s got to be one of the most difficult watercolor techniques. (And never mind the tree gone wild in the background.) But now that I understand her technique, I’m going to give it a shot whenever I see a fountain.

 

Hey, a new sketching nemesis! Not that I’ve conquered cars, trees and architecture yet, but there are fewer fountains in Seattle than any of my other sketching nemeses, so they won’t haunt me quite as often.