White Party, Part 3: Acrylic and Other Markers

 

As expected, lots of white party poopers

Opaque white pens: The bane of my sketching existence.

Intermittently during my 13 years of sketching, I’ve tried various white gel pens for those infrequent occasions when I want to make white lettering on a sketch or draw thin highlights. Though not without its faults, the Sakura Gelly Roll has long been my standby. The past year, however, as colored Uglybooks gradually took dominance over my urban sketching materials, white became increasingly important – not just for occasional writing with a fine line, but also for coloring in large blocks of sky. A full-on hunt commenced.

My first glint of optimism was for the Omiowl acrylic dual-tip marker, which was unfortunately short-lived (literally). I like the paint it contains, but the pen, as inexpensive as it is in a bulk pack, is not a good value.

Shown in this post are the others I’ve been trying since then. I’m not bothering to write individual reviews because most can be cast aside without fuss – only one (or possibly two) is worth paying attention to. So this review post will save you time (of reading full reviews) as well as money.

Swatches made in black Uglybook sketchbook

First, let’s get the white party poopers over with. The Deleter Neopiko 0.5mm is the same as the Uni Posca 0.7mm – except worse. See that messy blob on my swatch page? Yeah – that’s what pumping does when the paint won’t flow. (Ironically, the Posca that I had been cursing for being clogged up decided to put out decent lines on my swatch page, just to be contrary.)

I was excited about the Kuretake Zig Cartoonist brush pen, which has a unique twisting mechanism to make the pigment-based ink flow. I like the dry brush effects possible, and its opacity is better than most I tried. Unfortunately, even when recapped religiously, the brush tip seems to dry out easily, which means that when fresh ink is pumped out, it’s like painting with a half-dried-out paint brush. I suppose it needs to be cleaned off completely like a paint brush, but at $14, I don’t want high maintenance on top of high cost.

The Shuttle Art Tempera paint stick is unique in this comparison in that it’s not an ink at all – more like a solid, oil-pastel-like substance. But unlike oil pastels, it dries immediately and is no longer sticky – like a roll-on paint that dries fully. I like it a lot, but it’s impossible to draw fine marks or color small areas with its broad, flat tip (I cut it into a point in my photo), which is intended for kids. Sadly, my small A6-ish format sketchbook just isn’t big enough for such a broad tool, but it would be great with a larger drawing. It’s only available in a set of 15 or more colors.

The Pentel Milky Brush is OK when applied, and the brush doesn’t dry out like the Zig’s, but like most acrylic markers, it requires pumping and shaking. Nothing new here (and also a bit pricey).

White Sharpie: Good coverage, and layering 
increases opacity; I like the variation when sketching clouds.

Now I’ll get to the only two markers worth using in this batch. My hands-down favorite is the Sharpie Creative Marker with brush tip, which I learned about from urban sketcher Rob Deane, who also uses toned papers and therefore uses a lot of white. It requires some shaking, but no priming, and the paint flows evenly and smoothly every time – no blobs or clogging. (Ana at the Well-Appointed Desk gave a full review of these Sharpie markers recently, and she likes them, too.)

It has only two drawbacks: For my uses, the tip of the brush is fine, but not quite fine enough to write with (like the Posca 0.7mm or a Gelly Roll). Overall, however, the Sharpie’s brush tip has a good range from fine to broad (shown on my swatch page) that meets most of my needs.

Bright contrast from other Sharpie colors

The second drawback is that I had to buy a pack of 12 colors to get the white, which is the only one I really wanted. Despite that, I’m having fun using the other colors, especially the pastels. Picking out just one or two colors that contrast strongly with whatever Uglybook color I’m currently using has become a fun part of my process.

If I hadn’t met Sharpie Creative Markers, I would have picked Utillo acrylic paint markers as my top choice (I bought a mixed pack of all-white fine and medium tips, which doesn’t seem to be available currently). I balked at yet another bulk pack, but this one seems to be a good value in that the pens have already outlived the Omiowl. They require shaking, but no priming, and they are as well-behaved as the Sharpies. The fine (0.7mm) is finer than the very tip of the Sharpie, but I’d have to carry two Utillo pens to get both a fine and a broad, so the Sharpie is still more versatile.

Another good option: Utillo acrylic marker

There you have it – the party poopers and the stars!

(If you’re wondering about the previous White Parties, they were all about colored pencils and water-soluble colored pencils.) 

Addendum: This post was written and scheduled to go live, and the day before, this happened: Standing on the sidewalk sketching, I tried to pull the cap off the Sharpie, which seemed to be stuck. It suddenly released – but it wasn’t the cap that came off; it was the entire nib unit, which broke off the barrel! Now the nib is stuck inside the cap, and even if I figure out how to get it out, I’m afraid it will never seal properly with the paint unit again. I knew that terrific pen had to be too good to be true.

Broken where the nib unit attaches to the barrel. 

Breeze and Brews Keep Sketchers Cool

 

7/5/24 Project 9 Brewing Co.

On the first day of our heatwave, a few members of USk Seattle gathered at Project 9 Brewing Company for a drink & draw. Although the temps were in the mid-80s by late afternoon, a decent breeze on the well-shaded north side of the brewery kept us relatively comfortable (aided by good brews).

It was a fun evening of chat about art, art materials and even knitting, as almost all of us were or used to be knitters. Bonus (for me): Several dogs were present at the pet-friendly venue, including cooperative model Pine, who was part of our party.

Paws, Claws, Cookies and Macrina

6/30/24 Paws & Claws adoptable dogs at Macrina Bakery

Macrina Bakery’s Maple Leaf store, which opened to much neighborhood fanfare a year ago, celebrated its anniversary in a unique way: It hosted a meet-and-greet event for dogs rescued by Paws and Claws Pet Rescue. Hoping to be adopted, the dogs met prospective parents in the parking lot. Macrina staff offered decorate-it-yourself dog-shaped shortbread cookies to visitors who gave a donation to Paws and Claws.

My self-frosted cookie looked a bit pathetic – as an art medium, I prefer ink to icing any day – but I had fun trying to capture the pups with my brush pen.

These dogs were waiting with their foster parents to meet potential forever parents.

The pup I decorated myself isn't quite as pretty as the store-made Pride cookie. Both were equally delicious, however.

More Green Lake Trees

 

6/28/24 Green Lake neighborhood

I finished sketching the last four trees in the Green Lake neighborhood that were documented by Taha Ebrahimi in Street Trees of Seattle. Not all of the trees she highlights in the book are huge, old trees (though many are). Some are surprisingly small and indistinctive, like the tiny, young ginkgo in the middle of a street island. The twin quinces both have leaves that had been well-eaten by some infesting bugs, and I worried about their health. They are distinctive, however, for being the first quinces recorded in the City of Seattle as right-of-way trees (out of only 19 quinces in the whole city).

Now that I’ve made small gesture sketches of all the Maple Leaf and Green Lake trees, I have in mind three that would make nice portraits. Since the gesture sketches were all done in morning light, I’ve gone back to see one of them in late-afternoon light, which is definitely better than morning. Unfortunately, one that would be particularly magnificent to draw has a trunk that will always be in shade due to its huge canopy. It’s always challenging to draw anything in total shade, but I’ll have to make do.

This page spread got a little cramped and more cluttered than I had intended. While walking around Green Lake to get from one tree to another, I suddenly spotted two crows mercilessly harassing a bald eagle minding its own business high atop a tree. I should have given the birds more space (and therefore kept more space for the trees), but the spectacle felt like part of my tree-sketching story, so I put them on the same spread. (I posted a short video on Instagram.)

Malarkey

 

6/27/24 Sketched from live video broadcast

7/4/24 Have a safe and happy 4th!

I have no idea how non-sketchers are able to stomach presidential debates. I sketch to keep my eyes from rolling permanently into the back of my head.

Here’s how it went in 2020 and, even more memorably, in 2016, when my sketching room was especially appropriate.

Portland, Part 4: Diary Comics/Walk-Sketch Journal

6/23/24 My lunch at McMenamins Olympic Club in Centralia on the way down to Portland.

What’s the difference between my sketch journal, my walk-sketches, and my diary comics? Nothing, apparently, and it became especially evident in my sketchbook while I was traveling. I think the only distinction was in my mind while I made transitions from one to another as my processes and approaches morphed along the way.

6/23/24 Portland

Travel gives me an opportunity for intensive sketching that I don’t have during my usual daily routines and responsibilities. That intensity encourages a full integration of “destination” urban sketching (such as Ole Bolle, which has been on my “to-sketch” list ever since I found out about it) and more ordinary sketches of the type I make when I’m home. Away from home, everything is fresh, even the mundane, and it all feels part of my “travel journal” (which in this case, a three-day trip, was just my usual daily-carry Uglybook).

6/24/24 Lunch with Cindy (sketch of us from reference photo) and my takeout dinner

One of many reasons I chose to stay at the Inn at Northrup Station was that I knew from prior stays that it is in a very walkable area of the Pearl District. Just as I do at home, I took a daily walk around the neighborhood and sketched along the way. And when I travel, it’s only natural that I want to document more things like meals, which made it easy to make sketch journal/diary comics pages. (Almost all sketches were made from life except as noted.)

6/24/24 Portland (streetcar sketch from reference photo because it was always on the move)

When I make a series of small sketches as I do with my comics approach, it’s faster and therefore easier to cover more ground while traveling. This is something I discovered in 2019 in blistering Amsterdam. I talked about it again when an insightful urban sketcher made the samediscovery when she traveled. Doing it regularly at home leading up to the trip made it completely effortless while I was on the trip.

6/25/24 Pearl District

As I’ve said before, the best way to prepare for travel sketching is simply to sketch on location regularly when you’re not traveling. 

6/26/24 From my last neighborhood walk in the "alphabet district" before I hit the road again.

Incidentally, you’ll note from my journal pages that I went to Powell’s City of Books, a can’t-miss mecca for book lovers visiting Portland. Hell-bent on downsizing my stash of everything, I nearly had to tie my hands behind my back to resist books I wanted, but resist I did. The only thing I succumbed to was a pack of three small notebooks with vintage colored pencil and color-mixing images on the covers.

Portland, Part 3: USk Portland at Tanner Springs

 

6/25/24 Tanner Springs Park, Portland

Another highlight of my trip down south was meeting up with Urban Sketchers Portland. Vicky Porter, a sketcher I had met at a couple of USk symposiums as well as Sketcher Fest last year, kindly organized an ad hoc outing for my visit. We gathered first at Ovation, a Moroccan coffee shop near Tanner Springs Park, then spent the rest of the time sketching in or near the park.

Sunny and growing hotter by the minute, the morning drove all of us toward shade, which was cooled by the ongoing breeze. Most of the others chose to sketch inside the park, which includes a unique, humanmade pond filled with lily pads, other vegetation and small fish. I tried to make a tonal study contrasting the reflective water, stairways, an unusual barrier wall and the geometric walkways, but I had trouble separating the tones of the various types of shadows. It was a good challenge to attempt, though.

After that, I walked around the park and made a few small street scenes, including a couple of Portland’s many bridges.

A few scenes around the park

Many thanks to Vicky and USk Portland for coming out to sketch with me! I learned that a number of Portland sketchers will be coming up for Sketcher Fest next month, so Seattle USk will have an opportunity to reciprocate.

I know I say this every time I travel, but the single biggest benefit of being a member of Urban Sketchers is being able to find fellow sketchers to meet with no matter where I go – whether it’s the other side of the world or just across the state border.

Tina, Vicky, Cindy, Leslie and George at the throwdown

Leslie, Vicky, Paula and Tina at the park

Greenwood Car Show Retrospective

 

6/29/24 Greenwood Car Show

(I still have a couple more posts planned about my visit to Portland, but I’m interrupting the series to report on my favorite event of the summer.)

One year, it rained. Another, it was so cold that I had to retreat to a coffee shop midway to warm up. On Saturday USk Seattle was treated to a rare day in June for the Greenwood Car Show: the ideal temperature for sketching under a mix of sunny and partly cloudy skies. It’s always a fun event – except for the pandemic pause, I think I’ve only missed one year since 2014 – and it’s even more fun to sketch with USk Seattle.  

My personal tradition is to arrive early before the show officially
opens, get coffee at Herkimer, and watch the cars roll in.
The tables outside Herkimer are a great place to catch dogs
waiting for their humans to come back out with treats.

Usually my approach is to make portraits of several cars that attract my fancy and one or two sketches that show more context. This year I took a comics approach by making multiple small sketches that show various views of this neighborhood show. The sketches are so small that they don’t take much time, so I cover more ground and capture more of the overall car show story – and history.

Owners love to talk about what they’ve done to their cars, how much it cost to do that work, and how long they’ve owned them. And passers-by have memories evoked by cars they see – old models owned by parents or grandparents, or the ones they used to learn to drive. My favorite story this year was written on a placard next to a 1966 VW Bug. Its original and current owner, Florence, had recently celebrated her 100^th birthday, and a card was available for show visitors to write Florence a birthday greeting.

Florence's beautifully maintained '66 Bug

Just for fun, I’m including below one sketch from each of the previous years I’ve sketched at the Greenwood Car Show.

6/28/14 Rain-spattered!

6/27/15 '72 Buick Riviera

6/25/16 '63 Bonneville convertible

6/24/17

6/29/19

6/25/22

6/24/23