Corsets & Clockwork

11/14/13 Platinum Carbon and Diamine Grey inks, watercolor, Canson
mixed-media drawing pad (20-min. pose)

Last night’s Pinup Figure life drawing session at Artist & Craftsman had a steampunk theme called “Corsets and Clockwork.” Our model Lisa was excellent, and the ruffles and billowy fabric of her bloomers proved challenging. But my biggest difficulty last night was her impossibly long legs! I used the classic head-count method to gauge proportions, but I still don’t think I drew her legs long enough. In fact, I ran out of space on my page several times.

If I count all of my sketches from the one-minute poses, I’d be done with NaNoDrawMo now. But where’s the fun in that? I’m counting only the sketches from four five-minute poses and three 20-minute poses. Instead of different poses for the 20-minute sessions, the group decided on a single pose (broken into 20-minute sessions), so I decided to do three separate sketches using different media. (See the rest in my Flickr photostream.)

Technical notes: The five-minutes poses were done with an Akashiya brush pen (no longer stocked by JetPens.com), which I’d completely forgotten was in my life drawing pencil case until I was digging for something else and found it there. It turned out to be ideal for loose yet expressive five-minute sketches. I also tried using watercolor on my last 20-minute sketch of the evening. When I’m focused on sketching people in the field (such as at Zoka Coffee yesterday), I tend to reach for pen and ink, both for simplicity and because I love the subtle shading I can get on faces with water-soluble ink. But I’d like to start using watercolor more often on people, so this life drawing session was a good opportunity to practice.

11/14/13 Akashiya brush pen, Canson drawing pad
(5-min. pose)

11/14/13 Diamine Chocolate ink, Sailor pen, Canson
mixed-media drawing pad (20-min. pose)

11/14/13 Akashiya brush pen, Canson drawing pad
(5-min. pose)

11/14/13 Akashiya brush pen, Canson drawing pad
(5-min. pose)

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

Last Chance for Color and Bonus Utility Lines

11/13/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Fabriano hot-press paper

Driving through the Greenwood neighborhood, I was looking for an interesting church that I had seen on a previous visit, but I never made it there: This little maple growing in a traffic circle stopped me in my tracks. Every time I think all the trees have given up their color, I spot one that insists there’s still plenty of time to shine.

When I finished the tree, I still had about 15 minutes before I had to leave for an appointment, and then I remembered this week’s Urban Sketchers Flickr group theme: utility lines. Power poles and lines are so ubiquitous in Seattle that I barely had to turn my gaze from the tree to make my next sketch.

11/13/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Fabriano

Still Life M N O (and First Fabriano Test)

11/13/13 Still life M N O. Platinum Carbon ink, Van Gogh watercolors, Fabriano
hot-press paper

In my ongoing series of alphabetical still lifes, I present M N O.

Technical note: This is my first test of the 140-pound Fabriano hot-press paper I bought the other day. The sizing takes Platinum Carbon ink without incident, and the paints sink into the surface at about the same rate as all the cold-press papers I’m used to, so it behaved predictably based on my experience. I had to rewet the paper a couple times in one spot and lifted color in another spot, and all was well. So far, so good.

Dry Pen

11/11/13 Lamy cartridge, 100 lb. paper

Whenever I go fitness walking around Green Lake, I always take an ultra-compact sketching kit (you can see it on my Current Favorite Art Materials page toward the bottom) in case I spot something interesting, but I don’t use it often. That means the pen – a Lamy Vista filled with a standard Lamy ink cartridge – gets a bit dried and clogged from lack of use.

This morning a heron was as close to shore as I’ve ever seen it, leisurely scanning the water and just asking to be sketched. Cursing the whole time, I eked out this one-minute sketch with the nearly dry Lamy. (Still, it counts as a drawing for NaNoDrawMo, so it wasn’t a total loss.) Lesson learned: I have to include that pen in my regular rotation of fountain pens to keep it running smoothly.

Still Life J K L

11/10/13 Still life J K L. Copic Multiliner SP pen, Van Gogh watercolors, Arches hot press 140 lb. paper

For still life J K L in my alphabetical series, I only had to walk as far as the kitchen.

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).