The Sketchbook Project Comes to Seattle

Jennifer, Tina, Michele and Judy check out their own and others' sketchbooks.

The Sketchbook Project mobile library is in Seattle through tomorrow! This traveling exhibit of sketchbooks from around the globe has been here before, but not since I became a sketcher. I participated for the first time in 2013, but that collection of sketchbooks didn’t come to Seattle. I wasn’t going to participate this year, but then I heard that the project was going to tour the Pacific Northwest, so I couldn’t resist.

After the Friday sketchers sketched in Pioneer Square, a few of us walked up the hill to the Seattle Public Library to meet up with Michele and Judy, who came over from Anacortes and Bellevue to see their sketchbooks. We all checked out a few books randomly from other Sketchbook Project participants, too.

See all the pages in my Sketchbook Project sketchbooks in these Flickr albums:

2013 Sketchbook Project

2014 Sketchbook Project

The Sketchbook Project mobile library

Product Review: Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi Ink

3/27/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink, Strathmore 400 140 lb. paper

Not unlike some human relationships, I have complicated, ambivalent feelings about Pilot Iroshizuku inks. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a love/hate relationship – I definitely love most of them. The colors are rich and vibrant, and they flow beautifully wet in every pen I’ve used them with. Their price – $28 a bottle at GouletPens.com and JetPens.com, a little less at Amazon.com – causes some of my ambivalence (though when purchased as $2.50 samples from GouletPens, I’m quite happy).

Most of my ambivalence comes from wimpy washes I’ve seen with some colors. A couple months ago I complained about Kiri-Same, and last December I was disappointed with Take-Sumi. But maybe it was my line work that was wimpy and not the ink wash, because I’ve definitely had a change of heart about Take-Sumi (Bamboo Charcoal).

To write and draw with, Take-Sumi is a nice, solid black, but nothing special; with the pens I use, I’ve not seen any shading. It’s the application of water, though, that makes it sing. If I lay down a fairly heavy line, the wash I get with Take-Sumi is a complex mix of blue, gray and even some brown. (With the right pen, I suppose you’d see this in the shading; let me know if you do.) It’s become one of my favorite inks to use when sketching people because I can achieve delicate shading on faces.

I’ve previously admitted to a blind love for Iroshizuku inks. But right now I have my eyes wide open, and I’m back in love with Take-Sumi. (I may have to re-evaluate other colors, in case I’ve misjudged them also.)

11/6/13 Take-Sumi ink, Sketchbook Project sketchbok

4/2/13 Take-Sumi ink, Stillman & Birn Alpha
sketchbook

Clouds and Coffee in the Carnival

11/15/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink,
Sketchbook Project sketchbook

The Carnival of Pen, Pencil, and Paper, this month hosted by A Penchant for Paper, includes two of my blog posts! Many thanks to Heather for accepting my posts along with many other interesting blogs talking about some of my favorite subjects. If you’re not familiar with the blog carnival concept (as I wasn’t until I learned about it on A Penchant for Paper recently), learn all about it on this Blog Carnival page.

Another Sketchbook Project Done

11/15/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink

Today I filled the last page in my 2014 Sketchbook Project sketchbook, which I began on Oct. 17, and I’m happy – more like relieved – to be done. Last year the project was a fun novelty; this year I was mostly annoyed by the thin, slick paper that can’t take even the slightest wash (which I gave every page anyway, causing a lot of buckling and wrinkling). The main reason I participated again is that in 2014 the Sketchbook Project mobile library will be coming to the Pacific Northwest, including Seattle, and it will be fun to finally see the exhibit here. But it’s probably going to be the last time I participate.

One thing I’m pleased about is that the entire book – containing mostly sketches of people in the indoor urban landscape – is what I would call “typical” of my sketching habit, especially in the winter months. As was true last year, I didn’t want the drawings in the Sketchbook Project sketchbook to be somehow “special”; I didn’t want to try to make them somehow “better” (as if I consciously could), because I knew that would make me freeze up. I just wanted the sketchbook to be a typical sampling of what I do every day in my ordinary sketchbook, and it turned out to be exactly that (except for the crappy paper, of course). I think the theme will be “Strange Neighbors.”

11/19/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink

Most of the sketches have already appeared on my blog on the dates that I drew them, and all the sketches I made in November are already in my Flickr photostream because I put them into the NaNoDrawMo group. But if you’d like to see all the pages as a group, I’ve put them into this Sketchbook Project 2014 Flickr set.

Who Clued Them In?

12/3/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sailor pen, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Whenever I visit Zoka Coffee, I see numerous people texting or otherwise using their mobile phones, some of whom I’ve sketched previously. So even though I had several old sketches I could post on this week’s Urban Sketchers Flickr group thread on the theme “People with Mobile Phones,” I knew it would be easy to find a fresh victim. Ha!

12/3/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sketchbook Project Sketchbook

At 10:30 a.m., Zoka’s peak morning time, the place was packed, and yet, for the nearly two hours that I sat there, I could not spot a single person using a phone. You’d think someone had gotten there ahead of me to warn them that I would sketch them if they had their phones out. Nonetheless, the laptop-engrossed crowd was an easy target, so I had my fill of sketching.

Just as I was putting away my pens and sketchbook to leave, the guy wearing headphones whom I had spent the last hour sketching received a text! OK, fine – I would sketch him again. (Notice that during that hour, his face had completely transformed, and he looked like a different person. Amazing what a few cups of caffeine will do to a guy.)

12/3/13 Diamine Macassar ink, Sailor pen, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

Merlin

11/25/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

Merlin is a field golden retriever. I met him this afternoon at the 72^nd Street Café near Green Lake, where I stopped for coffee on my way to yoga class. Quietly lying at his guy’s feet, he would occasionally perk up when offered a bite of a sandwich, then go right back to the same position, obliging my sketch very nicely.

Ink on Fabriano (with a Side of Scone)

11/14/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Fabriano hot-press paper

Rain, gloom, overcast skies: It’s Zoka Coffee weather – and the season for their pumpkin scones. It was a good opportunity to give the Fabriano hot press a run with pen and ink: my favorite Sailors and water-soluble Diamine inks. As I expected, the smooth, hot-press finish is a dream under the nibs, and the inks wash beautifully on the surface.

The scone was pretty dang good, too.

11/14/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Fabriano

11/14/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Fabriano

11/14/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Fabriano

11/14/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

Another Coupon

11/9/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

I must be a marketer’s dream come true. Motivated by several things, not the least of which was another discount coupon that was burning a second hole in my purse, I stopped at Starbucks on my way home from the cemetery. Making my salted caramel mocha even more delicious were two other motivators: Wanting to make one more sketch today for NaNoDrawMo and also feeling like filling a couple more pages in my Sketchbook Project sketchbook.

I carry that little booklet in my bag daily, but it’s so thin and light that I often forget I have it with me and reach for my Stefano (with more desirable paper) instead. The Sketchbook Project sketchbook’s flimsy paper takes a little more motivation to lay a pen and wash on, because I know I won’t like the buckling that results. But the other day I realized I hadn’t used Private Reserve Velvet Black ink in a while, so I filled up a Lamy, and the joy of using that ink somewhat overcame my dismay over the paper (which, I admit, is nice and smooth under pen and ink – until I put the waterbrush on it, and it wrinkles like toilet paper).

Like Pornography

11/8/13 Diamine Eclipse, 100 lb. paper

I often spend bus commuting time surreptitiously sketching fellow passengers. Today on my way to and from the Convention Center was no different, except I was particularly motivated to do as many as possible to catch up on my NaNoDrawMo deficit for the week (I think I’m caught up now, so if I sketch one or two a day for the rest of the month, I’ll meet the goal).

Looking at the five very fast bus portraits (see the rest in my Flickr photostream), I noticed that in the one I did of a man looking at his phone (at right) I somehow managed to capture his essence, whatever that is. I’d venture to guess that his friends would recognize him in this sketch, as the resemblance is better than most of my people sketches. But resemblance is not what I mean when I say “essence.” The younger man that I sketched listening to his iPod (below) is also a reasonably good resemblance, but I don’t think I captured his essence. I wish I could quantify or articulate this concept more clearly. It’s like pornography: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.

11/8/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

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

How Long Did That Take?

11/4/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen, Zig marker, Canson Montval (left) and Strathmore 400 (right) 140 lb. papers

How long did it take you to make that?

When beads and fiber were my primary art media, I was asked that question frequently. Since it was always of interest to people, I started keeping track, which helped me to price my work when I eventually offered them for sale. Back then, the answer was anywhere from 20 hours to hundreds of hours for a single piece.

Now that ink and watercolor are my primary sketching media, I’m not asked that question as often. But in an ongoing discussion thread in the Urban Sketchers Flickr group, a sketcher said that he’s interested in learning how long it takes for specific sketches to be completed, so he wished that more sketchers would include that information with the sketches they post.

11/4/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown and Pilot Iroshizuku
Take-Sumi inks, Sailor pen, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

Since I was already in the habit of tracking my time from my beading days, I have always noted the time I start a sketch and the time I finish it on my sketchbook page (though that information is usually cropped out when I post the image). Interestingly, over the two years that I’ve been sketching, the length of time I spend on any particular sketch hasn’t changed much. Other than very quick gestural sketches that take a minute or less, almost all of them take from 20 to 60 minutes, with the vast majority finished in 30 to 45 minutes. (The only exception was my first of many sketches of the Köln Cathedral in Germany, on which I spent two full hours.)

In the sketch above at Green Lake, I was attracted to the juxtaposition of the tall maple tenaciously hanging onto its fading colors and the other tree that had simply let go of autumn and all of its leaves during Saturday’s big storm.

That sketch took 45 minutes. After finishing it, I drove to my yoga class and arrived 10 minutes early. Hmmm . . . 10 minutes isn’t much time for a sketch – but if I know I have only 10 minutes, I can make a 10-minute sketch. So I sketched another bare tree and the cars parked under it.

Lunching at Central Market

10/24/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor,
Strathmore 400 140 lb. paper

Natalie and I got together for lunch at Central Market to talk about our favorite activities – traveling and sketching – and figuring out ways to do more of both simultaneously. After we finished eating and strategizing, we both pulled out our sketchbooks and sketched each other.

On the way home I stopped at Northgate for an errand, but I couldn’t even get out of the mall parking lot without spotting a tree to sketch. Our days may be numbered, but our number’s not up yet.

10/24/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sailor pen, Zig markers, colored pencil,
Sketchbook Project sketchbook

Café Louvre

10/17/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Strathmore 400 (left) and Canson Montval (right) 140 lb. paper

Last night was the Third Thursday Artwalk in Edmonds, so I joined a bunch of other Seattle Urban Sketchers at Café Louvre to greet visitors viewing the “Urban Sketchers Celebrates Edmonds” exhibit and sort of be on exhibit ourselves as sketchers. We were competing with the Seahawks game for local attention, so it was a quiet evening, and most of us ended up just sketching.

I warmed up with a sketch of Teresa and then a portrait of John (who was tracking the Seahawks game on his iPad). Then I moved to the other side of the café to sketch the fireplace and Mark sketching probably the fireplace.

10/17/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen,
Sketchbook Project sketchbook

10/17/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen
Sketchbook Project sketchbook

Another Sketchbook Project Begins, Plus a Plug for NARM

10/17/ 13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Sailor pen, Sketchbook Project booklet

Only a few minutes’ walk from the place where I take my car to get its oil changed, the Burke Museum is an ideal place to kill an hour with my sketchbook (much better than waiting in that stuffy little room drinking weak coffee and using weak Wi-Fi). I decided it was also an ideal place to initiate my 2014 Sketchbook Project sketchbook. As a participant last year, I had fun filling the little sketchbook, but I didn’t feel particularly compelled to participate again – until I heard that Arthouse Coop is going to take the exhibit to the Pacific Northwest in 2014, including Seattle. I couldn’t resist that, could I? I signed up again.

Last year I chose the theme “Strangers” and filled the book with mostly “floating head” sketches of people in coffee shops or riding the bus. I haven’t decided on a theme yet, but since I’ll still be working on it during the Fall and Winter, I’ll probably be sketching indoors most of the time. I’m sure I’ll still have lots of sketches of people, but maybe I’ll widen my scope to include other heads, such as skulls.

In any case, I didn’t give it much thought this afternoon at the Burke – I just pulled out the Sketchbook Project sketchbook because it was in my bag (I’ll carry it with me daily until it’s full – the best way to make sure I don’t forget to use it) and sketched a polar bear skull on page 1. Last year I discovered immediately that the thin paper in the booklet can’t take a wash, so as before, I’m not going to use watercolor in it. But the smooth surface is nice under fountain pens and markers.

10/17/13 Diamine Eclipe ink, Strathmore 400 140 lb. paper

Having initiated the Sketchbook Project booklet, I used my “Stefano” for a couple more sketches: the same polar bear skull from a different angle and a rear paw of a Hoplophoneus skeleton (which I sketched in its entirety earlier this year). 

By the way, if you’re wondering how I can afford the luxury of popping into a museum for only an hour, please indulge me for a moment as I step onto my favorite soapbox: the reciprocal museum program. My spouse-guy and I already had an annual membership to the Bellevue Arts Museum. We learned that if we paid only $10 more to upgrade to the next level of benefits, we would get free admission to hundreds of other museums in North America, including several local ones where I enjoy sketching, such as the Burke and the Museum of History and Industry. When we travel, we look at the list of participating museums to see if we’ll be nearby one of them. It’s an amazing value, and you support a whole network of museums in the U.S. Canada and Mexico. OK, end of soapbox. But don’t forget to check out the North American Reciprocal Museum Association’s list to see if you can take advantage of this great deal.

10/17/13 Diamine Eclipe ink, Strathmore 400 140 lb. paper

Work Spaces

Photo by Greg Mullin

The Art House Co-op, sponsor of the popular Sketchbook Project that I recently took part in, also sponsors a series of free projects called “Encyclopedia of.” The current theme is “Work Spaces,” and participants were invited to submit images of their studios, offices and anything else they see as a work space.

 

As an urban sketcher, I think of my primary “studio” as the bag I carry wherever I go, and the whole world is a potential work space, so I submitted this photo of myself “working.” The collection of images is a fun slide show of more than 900 work spaces, including many art studios.

Sketchbook Project: Done



11/5/12, 11/23/12 fountain pen

Last month I reported that I had filled my Sketchbook Project sketchbook, but so much white space was left on many of the pages that I felt compelled to continue sketching. I still have time before the Jan. 15, 2013, deadline, but most pages are now crowded with “strangers” (my chosen theme), so it’s time to call it done.

 

What have I learned from participating?

 

As I noted in my first blog post about the project, I knew before I began that it was going to be important for me to think of the project sketchbook casually, as nothing special, almost as a throwaway to avoid being intimidated. (Indeed, the paper in the book is so thin and crappy that I often did feel like throwing it away!) Instead of trying to put only my “best” sketches in this sketchbook (a most certain way to keep the book empty), I often used it for my warm-up sketch – the first one of the day, just to get the ink and right side of the brain flowing. My what-the-heck attitude kept me from stalling and kept the sketches fresh.

9/12/12, 12/10/12 fountain pen, marker

 

Once I decided to fill in the blank spaces with more sketches, I discovered that an interesting dialog sometimes developed between some strangers on the page without my conscious direction. The man sketched in blue ink on Dec. 10 looks like he’s having a conversation with himself, sketched with a brown marker on Sept. 12.

 

Several years ago when I had first heard about the project, I shuddered at the thought of putting my drawings out into the world. That’s what kept me from participating. But in the past year since I began sketching, I’ve come to realize that the sketch on the page isn’t nearly as important as the process that put it there. And now that I’ve been blogging almost a year and posting my sketches regularly, I’ve discovered that sharing my sketches is a large part of the joy of sketching. I am happy to share this little book of sketches with whoever wants to see it. And now that I’ve scanned all the pages, I’m going to put the sketchbook in an envelope and send it on its way.

 

Learn more about the Sketchbook Project on its website. See all 17 page spreads in my Sketchbook Project sketchbook in a Flickr slideshow, or view the images one at a time in my Flickr photostream.

Sketchbook Project Sketchbook: Full

11/5/12 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink

The Sketchbook Project sketchbook that I began in September is now full. The crappy paper aggravated me every time I tried to do washes, but instead of doing something about it (I know that some participants are gluing in different papers or making other changes to accommodate their media and sketching styles), I decided to stop fighting the paper and use fountain pen inks without washes, which forced me to pay closer attention to lines (not a bad thing – I know I’m guilty of trying to cover up sloppy lines with washes; now my sloppy lines are fully visible).

 

As I thumbed through the thin book, I noticed lots of pages with plenty of white space left on them. Since I still have a couple months before the sketchbook is due, I’m going to go back and fill in some of the spaces with more sketches.

Edited 12/19/12: I finished the sketchbook on Dec. 19, 2012. See all 17 page spreads in my Sketchbook Project sketchbook in a Flickr slideshow, or view the images one at a time in my Flickr photostream.

9/17/12, 11/5/12

11/5/12 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink



Getting My Coffee Shop Mojo Back

10/22/12 Diamine Grey ink, Zig brush markers, Hand Book

Sunday’s sketchcrawl was a stroke of weather luck; shortly after I got home that day, it started raining (sleeting, actually!), and it hasn’t stopped since. Needing a dry place to sketch, I headed for the Green Lake Zoka.

 

(Last spring when I first started this blog, I routinely referred to an unnamed coffee shop as the location for many sketches. Fairly new to sketching in public, I was paranoid that if I named the location in my blog, the patrons I’d been sketching would be outraged, and I’d eventually be banned from my favorite coffee shop. Now that I’ve been sketching for more than a year, I realize that no one cares who or what I sketch, so I’m fine with blatantly naming the place. In fact, I’m even giving them a plug to express my thanks for the many hours I occupy their tables. Thanks, Zoka, for the luscious scones and mochas!)

 

10/22/12 Diamine Grey, Zig marker, Sketchbook Project

After a few head sketches, I realized that I’ve lost my coffee shop sketching mojo. All those urban sketches that filled my sketchbooks during the summer improved my skills with drawing architecture and trees. And all the musical performers I sketched at farmer’s markets helped me with figure proportions and action. But what happened to the portraits I used to lithely and stealthily put down on paper between sips of joe?

 

It’s like I keep saying: It’s all about practice. If you don’t, you get rusty. And as I’ve also noted before, the frustrating part is that progress is not progressive. Or maybe I have a selective memory, and my portrait sketches were never as lithe as I recall. No matter – there’s a long winter ahead, and plenty of time to practice.

10/22/12 Diamine Grey ink, Zig brush marker, Hand Book sketchbook

DUI

9/19/12 Lamy fountain pen

Last night I was guilty of DUI – drawing under the influence. One of these days I want to participate in Dr. Sketchy’s, so I decided to start training now. Dining at Fins in Port Townsend, I finished off the last of my wine while sketching these diners out on the deck (sketched in my Sketchbook Project sketchbook). Unfortunately, it got a little too chilly for them, and they came inside before I could finish. But then our desserts came, so I couldn’t finish them anyway.

The Sketchbook Project





9/12/12 Kuretake Brush Writer

When I first learned of The Sketchbook Project years ago, I longed to participate. It seemed like such an interesting concept to put sketchbooks – traditionally a private medium – on exhibit. But then I tried imagining what that would be like – having to commit to sending drawings in a book for the public to view. What if my drawings turned out bad? What if one drawing ruined the whole book? It couldn’t be torn out – what would I do? Submit it anyway? The very thought made my hair stand on end. So it was just as well that I “knew” I couldn’t draw and therefore disqualified myself from being eligible.

A few years ago the Art House Coop initiated A Million Little Pictures Project in the same spirit, so I thought that at last there was a medium even I could use. Participants were sent an old-fashioned disposable film camera. When all frames were exposed, we were to send in the photos that became part of the project.

 

I can’t even remember what theme I chose, and it obviously wasn’t inspiring, because I hardly remember what I photographed. It was a less than satisfying project for me, and I decided the whole concept really wasn’t for me.

 

Until now. This year I’m participating in the classic Sketchbook Project with a classic sketchbook – a little booklet of paper that I sketch on and send in when full. I chose the theme “Strangers,” since most of my cold-weather sketchbooks are filled with sketches of strangers in coffee shops, and the long fall and winter months are about to begin.

 

I actually registered and received my project sketchbook a couple of months ago, but I didn’t want to waste any summer sketching weather inside coffee shops, so today was the first time I made a sketch in it. (Ironically, I sat on Starbucks’ rooftop patio to make these sketches, since the summer has leisurely stretched out into September this year.)

 

9/12/12 Kuretake Brush Writer

As fearful as I was about participating several years ago, I’m equally fearless now. I simply carried my iced coffee up to the patio, opened the sketchbook up to the first page, and sketched the guy wearing headphones. Done. Turned the page, and did the second one.

 

Life is easier without fear, especially of something as harmless (and joyful) as drawing.

 

(On a technical note, I can see that I'm going to have to use dry media on this thin paper that can't take a wash. It wrinkled like a used Kleenex.)

Edited 12/19/12: I finished the sketchbook on Dec. 19, 2012. See all 17 page spreads in my Sketchbook Project sketchbook in a Flickr slideshow, or view the images one at a time in my Flickr photostream.