Getting My Ballpoint Chops Back

 

6/10/26 The Sanctuary and Smith Tower, downtown Seattle

MJ and Roy sketching inside Columbia Center

Last winter when USk Seattle met at Madison Centre, Roy and Mary Jean both missed out. Since our art play date on Wednesday began with a cold morning, it was a good opportunity to introduce them to this cushy, indoor location. With floor-to-ceiling windows all around, this office building’s lobby offers great views of old and new downtown architecture.

Since it was National Ballpoint Pen Day, which I observe annually, I brought along a trusty Bic 4-Color, one of my favorite ballpoints for drawing. It had been a long time since I last sketched with ballpoint, and my hatching felt rusty. While I was a little reluctant to take on architecture, the lovely domed top of The Sanctuary inspired me to push ahead anyway (above). Behind the dome was the glassy, ultra-modern F5 Tower (F5? Whose dumb idea was it to name a skyscraper after a function key?).

Feeling warmed up, I moved on to my beloved Smith Tower (like the Space Needle, it’s a subject I can’t resist if I see it). Hatched clouds – now, that’s something I don’t recall trying before!

W Hotel and Columbia Center lobby stairway

Bic 4-Color for the win!

By the time I finished that page, the morning began warming up, so I walked across the street to the federal courthouse’s sunny lawn. From there, I had a nice view of the pyramid atop the W Hotel. (Can you see the pattern here? I like to draw only the tops of buildings.)

After lunch at Columbia Center’s food court, Mary Jean and I both tackled the intriguing lobby staircase that offers seating along the sides. As soon as I began, I regretted the subject – all that horizontal hatching!

It was a fun day of getting my ballpoint chops back.

Ballpoint at Stone’s Throw

 

6/10/25 Stone's Throw Coffee and Market, Wallingford neighborhood

I recently heard about a coffee shop that opened just a couple of months ago in the Wallingford neighborhood. Ever searching for my ideal “third place,” I like to try every nearby venue. In addition, it was National Ballpoint Pen Day, giving me another reason to check it out, Bic in hand.

I should have known by the address that Stone’s Throw Coffee & Market would be noisy – it’s right on the busy intersection of North 45^th and Stone Way North (Get it? Stone’s throw?). The spacious, shady patio has a decent sketching view that I would have enjoyed, if not for the traffic noise (amplified by the leaf blowers working on the adjacent sidewalk). A pity on an otherwise lovely afternoon.

The interior could be promising, as the coffee shop is also a small store of gourmet-ish, picnicky foods and such that could be sketchable. I’ll give it another try on a rainy day.

“Untethered” Sketches

5/16/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood. On a golden hour walk,
I found the distant downtown buildings to look more silvery than gold.
As I sketched, a bird nearby caught my attention, so I quickly used the
Merlin app to identify it while also trying not to lose the rapidly falling light.
OK, I guess this sketch does have a story!

Although it may seem like all my urban sketches are now taking a comics-like form, I still make some one-off sketches on location that have no sequence or inherent story. (And some one-off sketches do have a full story – at least told in words.) My current focus on the comics approach, however, makes those sketches feel incomplete in some way – like I left the scene without finding one more sketch that would have given the first sketch more context. Regardless, I value all sketches, even the ones that now feel story-less. They are simply part of a different process.

5/17/24 Ducks near Green Lake

6/6/24 Rabbit seen on my walk

I recently read Craig Thompson’s Carnet de Voyage, a sketchbook diary about the comic artist’s travels through Europe. Initially, I thought all of the exquisite brush pen drawings were made on location, but that’s not the case; I think many were done with photo references and from imagination. Nonetheless, they were all done during the trip itself, not afterwards, and are impressively finished drawings that do not look “sketchy” at all.

5/23/24 Roofers at our neighbor's house (On second thought, I think this qualifies as comics.)

This quotation from Thompson’s book resonated with me and helped me identify the difference between a comics sequence and a one-off sketch:

A page of comics has its home – in a story; in a book. But a sketch is untethered, exposing process. The lines themselves aren’t special, but the memory attached to the stillness while making those lines.

Whether a sketch is part of a sequence or “untethered,” it always becomes special from the memory of making it. That has always been the most important part of urban sketching: My sketches are not necessarily about “special” moments; they are moments made special because I sketched them.

5/10/24 Maple Leaf. A walk during the golden hour.

6/10/24 Maple Leaf. A sketch for National
Ballpoint Pen Day.

King Charles III

6/10/23 Bic ballpoint in Field Notes Streetscapes sketchbook
(unattributed reference photo found on Wikipedia)

 As mentioned when I sketched Queen Elizabeth upon her death, I’m not particularly interested in the British Royal Family. But even without being a Royal-phile or collector of King Charles III’s coronation memorabilia, I certainly coveted a coronation commemorative Bic 4-Color ballpoint pen. A sweet friend across the pond knew that I would and sent me one, along with a pencil, stickers and bookmark. Since I received the gifts shortly before June 10, which is National Ballpoint Pen Day, I knew that would be the day to initiate the special 4-Color with a sketch.

It was easy to choose the subject, but I hadn’t thought about the pressure of making this portrait until I opened my sketchbook. Although I’ve been practicing portraiture of random, unknown people since last October (165 so far), this particular face is familiar around the world. Likeness was suddenly more important than usual. Other than his mother, His Majesty is probably the only famous person I have ever attempted to draw. Whew! I needed a lie-down after I was done!

One of three designs available at CultPens

Despite feeling that pressure, I want to acknowledge that if it hadn’t been for France Van Stone's online crosshatching course last fall, I never would have had the courage or confidence to attempt this royal portrait. France’s approach, jumping into Inktober with ballpoint portraiture, and the regular practice I’ve done since then all got me over whatever barrier of resistance and fear I had about portraiture before then. It’s never easy, but I no longer hesitate -- even when it’s the King of England.

By the way, in case you’re unaware, collecting Bic 4-Colors is a thing. The 4-Color is my favorite Bic form factor, and I do have a few, but I don’t collect them the way some do, like a fellow member of a Facebook group devoted to Bic ballpoints (of course there is such a group). He occasionally shows images of his vast collection, which includes limited editions, commemorative pieces and editions available only in Europe. I’m sure he already has all the variations, but I couldn’t resist running to the group and showing off my coronation 4-Color immediately.

An Infinite for Ballpoint Pen Day

 

6/10/21 Observing National Ballpoint Pen Day on trash day

Last Thursday was National Ballpoint Pen Day, which I have observed each year since I found out about it. On June 10, 1943, Hungarian brothers László and György Bíró became owners of the patent for the ubiquitous pen type that most of us associate with cheap disposables and promotional giveaways.

Ever since a few InkTobers ago when I committed to giving ballpoint a serious try, the basic, cheap Bic has been my first choice for drawing. Despite its lowly reputation, Bic ballpoints contain a unique type of ink that is ideal for building layers of subtle values, just like graphite. Although I’ve tried, I’ve not yet found an ink in other pens that responds in quite the same way. The gloppy, viscous ink in Bics that is not pleasant to use for writing is exactly what makes it great for drawing.

On Thursday, however, I thought I’d try something new: a Caran d’Ache Infinite. At six bucks, it’s pricey for a plastic-body ballpoint but very inexpensive for anything made by Caran d’Ache! It’s a fantastic writing pen – smoothly flowing with the gentlest knock I’ve ever used. Alas, as expected, the ink doesn’t layer the way a crappy Bic does. The thin, smooth ink is very nice for writing but just doesn’t have the same oomph. I’ve found this to be true of high-quality Japanese ballpoints, too, like the Uni Jetstream: The sad paradox is that if it’s good to write with, it probably isn’t as good to draw with.

I popped the Infinite into my bag for quick jots, which is what it was made for. As for drawing, I’ll stick with Bic Stics.

Review: Bic 4-Color 3+1 Pen/Pencil

 

A new function for an old-school icon: the Bic
4-Color 3+1

I seem to have come full circle.

Several years ago when I had been dabbling in sketching with ballpoint ink but hadn’t yet embraced it, I tried using a Bic 4-Color Pen. As a teenager, I thought it was the coolest thing ever to have four ink colors in one compact pen. First introduced in 1970 by French entrepreneur Marcel Bich, it’s nostalgic to me. Many decades later, the iconic pen was still cool in my continual search for compact, portable sketch materials, so I gave it a shot. As I said, I hadn’t yet embraced ballpoint ink, and the pen body itself seemed cheesy and clumsy, especially the slidey things used to select the ink colors. (Apparently my standards in product design had come up a few notches since I was 13.) I rejected it almost immediately.

The concept of a multi-pen still had sketch kit potential, however, so I upgraded to a Uni Jetstream 4 & 1 when I observed my first National Ballpoint Pen Day. With far superior design and construction, the Japan-made Jetstream’s body feels more substantial than a Bic 4-Color, and its slidey things move smoothly and engage flawlessly. The Jetstream is still my favorite ballpoint to write with. Unfortunately, the ink it contains is a newfangled “hybrid” that delivers a smoother, blob-free writing experience but, alas, is just not the same as blobby, oily Bic ink. I still keep it in my bag to sign papers or jot quick notes, but I don’t enjoy drawing with it. (Incidentally, in case you are uninitiated, the Japanese have gone hog wild in the multi-pen industry. A quick search on JetPens brings up literally hundreds of options. You’re welcome . . . see you in a few hours.)

From left: a classic 4-Color, one with a highlighter, one with "fashion" colors

Fast-forward a couple of years to InkTober, when I came to thoroughly embrace drawing with Bics. Something about that sticky, oil-based ink makes it the “pencil of pens”: It’s pressure-sensitive and can be layered gradually like graphite. Any pen that acts like a pencil is good by me!

A 0.7mm pencil component makes this Bic 4-Color unique.

Recently a new Bic 4-Color came to my attention: the 4-Color 3 + 1. Actually, it has only three ink colors, and the fourth component is a mechanical pencil (the Uni Jetstream also has a pencil unit, as designated by the “& 1” in its name). In general, I’m not a fan of drawing with mechanical pencils, but having a pencil option with my beloved Bic ink does make this Swiss army knife of drawing tools more versatile. It was worth a try.

As soon as I got it, I noticed a difference. The body shape is slightly different from the classic 4-Color and – more significantly – the mechanism of the slidey things is much smoother and operates better. Reading the fine print on the packaging, I learned that while most Bic 4-Colors are still made in France, the model with the pencil component is made in Japan. Interesting!

Also interesting is the Bic’s 0.7mm lead instead of the more typical 0.5mm lead found in other multi-pens. I have a heavy-handed habit of snapping most 0.5mm leads, so this was good news to me. The included lead feels like HB. For sketching, I prefer a softer one, so I’m going to swap it out for a 2B (the softest grade I could find in 0.7mm). It’s reassuring not to need a sharpener, which I haven’t carried in my slim pandemic bag in a year.

The ink refills – red, black and blue – are standard medium points that are my favorite for drawing.

Capped eraser

Much-improved slidey things!

Blue, red, black inks

1/26/21 Bic 4-Color 3 + 1, Uni Pin brush pen and colored 
pencil in Field Notes Signature

As much as I enjoy sketching with a ballpoint or graphite pencil, they can be more time-consuming than watercolor pencils or markers because the best use of them involves large areas of hatching. I’m not inclined to do that kind of sketching on the street, so I’ve been using the Bic 4-Color 3 + 1 in conjunction with the Uni Pin brush pen. The latter does the heavy lifting on darker values quickly. I like the combo.

With red and blue the only colors besides black, this so-called 4-Color isn’t as colorful as I would like it to be. Still, during these grayest days of winter, it’s accurate for neighborhood sketching. I have some doubts about how well the 4-Color 3 + 1 will serve my minimalism challenge  needs, but it’s fun to have a “new” tool to try. And regardless of how well it works for my challenge, it’s great to see an improved body for an old-school tool.

My Hand Raised in Support of Black Lives

After the trauma of the past few weeks since George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police, it’s been heartening to see so much support for Black Lives Matter in the community. Although the looting and violent incidents get most of the media attention, for the most part, protests here have been peaceful.

I’ve been especially excited about the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle, where the police station has been abandoned and left to what Trump has called “Domestic Terrorists” – people sharing music and poetry and leaving graffiti messages. Fellow Seattle urban sketcher Ellie Doughty has excellent sketch reportage coverage of the “peaceful anarchy” that is ensuing. It feels like the ‘60s!

Quoted from a New York Times article:

“Take back your city NOW,” Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet directed at Mayor Jenny Durkan and Gov. Jay Inslee that he repeated on Thursday. “If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game.”Ms. Durkan responded with a tweet of her own: “Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker.”

All of this makes me proud to be a Seattle native!

With so many protests going on all over the nation, I was initially extremely concerned about the crowding leading to a spike in new COVID-19 infections. I’m still concerned, but over the past couple of weeks, I’ve also seen how important the solidarity has been in healing the community. Although my heart is committed to the changes our country must make to ensure social justice for everyone, I am not brave enough to stand with the crowd and express myself. I’m grateful to people like Ellie for giving voice to the cause in a way that is especially meaningful to me – with her sketches. If I were several decades younger, I would like to believe that I would be in the CHAZ sketching with her.

I took a break from the black sketchbook to observe
National Ballpoint Pen Day

A Super-Cool Bic

From top: my custom Baux pen, a random surprise Baux pen, a hotel freebie Bic Stic

5/28/19 faux gargoyle spotted in the University District
sketched with my custom Baux containing black ink

Ever since last InkTober when I learned to appreciate sketching with a commonplace Bic ballpoint pen, it has become so essential that it even made my Top Products list for 2018. The Zebra F-301 has similar ink (and a better body), and the Bic Clic’s retractable design is a slight improvement over the capped Cristal or Stic. The featherweight Stic form factor is my least favorite – the plastic is so light that it’s like drawing with a drinking straw that could blow away in a breeze – but any of them will do. It’s the ink that counts.

I wasn’t actively looking for a better Bic, but somehow things like this seem to find me: The Baux Pen Co. makes “super cool machined pens” for Bic ink. Made of anodized aluminum with titanium or brass on the grip and available in a choice of several colors, Baux pens are Bic Stics dressed up for the Oscars. (The cap and tip collar retain the Bic logo, so they actually are Bic pens.) But the metallic finishes are not just for show. The titanium grip on mine adds 12.5 grams of heft, making the pen much easier to hold and use. Baux pens all take standard Bic refills that I can pull out of the freebies I’ve taken from hotel rooms.

5/28/19 sketched with the "be the good" Baux
containing blue ink

All of that is cool, but I’m not sure I would have sprung for a Baux if it weren’t for two super-cool options: custom text and the choice of printing the text in the left-handed direction! For five bucks more, I opted for a random surprise pen – and it’s printed in the lefty direction, too! Someone who packed my order was paying attention.

Who needs a Bic dressed up for the Oscars? Apparently, I do – and it’s super-cool.

Not only that – it’s National Ballpoint Pen Day!

A Puppy and a Cupola (and Uni Jetstream Review)

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.)

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).

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. 

Working on My Tan

6/3/16 inks, white gel pen, ballpoint

Friday when I was downtown for National Donut Day, I made a couple of sketches on tan toned paper (a few sheets of which I’ve bound into my regular signatures). I’m still getting used to Strathmore toned paper, which is a lot thinner than my usual 140-pound Canson and isn’t sized in the same way, so I have to be careful when I get out a waterbrush (filled with either water or ink). But otherwise, I’m having fun and learning to appreciate its values (Ha – get it?). I find myself looking for opportunities to take advantage of toned paper with subjects that have high contrast.

My first try of the day was Plymouth Pillars Park on Capitol Hill (below). The four columns used to stand at the entrance of Plymouth Congregational Church, which was demolished in 1966. I was attracted to the speckled shadows that the tall trees were casting on them.

After I enjoyed my donut at Top Pot, I was walking to my bus stop when I discovered a small park I hadn’t noticed before. Workers were enjoying bag lunches in the beautiful noontime sun beneath a statue of John Harte McGraw, the second governor of Washington State. I have to admit I had never heard of him until I just Googled his name. (Urban sketching teaches me something new every day!) However, I did appreciate the shadows I had fun with. 

6/3/16 inks, white gel pen, brush pen