Fountain Pen Idleness Updates: Pilot Metropolitan and Petit1

Idle fountain pen champs: the Pilot Petit1 and Pilot Metropolitan.

(See the original Metropolitan idleness report.) On Jan. 24, I filled both my Pilot Metropolitan and my Lamy Vista with waterproof Platinum Carbon ink. Today, 14 days later, both pens were clogged and skippy when I first tried to write with them, as expected. I tried holding a wet paper towel against the nibs for a bit and wiping any ink off. The Lamy required a complete nib flushing to get it flowing properly again. But the Metro was flowing smoothly again after only the paper towel wipe. It’s unlikely that I would go two weeks without using Platinum Carbon, so this test is mostly hypothetical, but the results are interesting anyway.

(See the original Petit1 review.) I didn’t have need for my Pilot Petit1 today (I keep it in my fitness-walking bag, where it’s rarely used), but the results of the idleness test I was running with my Lamy Vista vs. Pilot Metropolitan reminded me that I hadn’t used the Petit1 since I filled it with water-soluble Private Reserve Velvet Black ink on Jan. 12. I just tested it – and it wrote like a charm! No skipping, blobbing or clogging after being idle for 24 days. I wonder how it would do filled with Platinum Carbon and left idle for 14 days. . . ? Stay tuned!

(Updated 2/22/14: Check out the results of my test: Both the Petit1 and the equally cheap Platinum Preppy filled with Platinum Carbon and left idle for 14 days. Spoiler: They both did great!)

And yes – I did get a new Metropolitan – the Silver Python! With the stellar results I’ve been getting with this modestly priced pen, it’s very likely to give the Lamys a boot on my next Top 10 list.

(The winter doldrums are apparently as good for pen testing as they are for bookbinding. At least for this pen geek.) 

Updated 6/21/14: Four months after my Platinum Carbon test, I’m declaring the Petit1 to be my all-time idle pen champ!

Trophy Cupcakes

2/6/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Fabriano Studio hot press 140 lb. paper

An errand in the Wallingford neighborhood was sufficient excuse to stop at Trophy Cupcakes, where they make beautifully frosted confections that aren’t hugely overwhelming in size like some I’ve seen. (In fact, I devoured mine –salted caramel! – in just the right number of bites and without feeling like a pig.)

The curved counter and round canopies were perspective challenges that I don’t usually encounter. But it’s hard to resist an opportunity to sketch balloons, not to mention the clerk wearing a tiara.

Sixth Sketchbook Done

Here’s the sketchbook I finished binding today – my sixth. On the covers this time are reproductions of part of a sketch I did during my sketcher-in-residency at MOHAI and a bare tree I sketched just after the new year – one of many I’ve been sketching this winter.

Last August (ah, what a fond but distant memory!) when I first started bookbinding, I figured that I could leave my filled sketchbook signatures unbound until the winter doldrums, which seemed like a good time for binding. As it turned out, I didn’t like leaving unbound signatures lying around for long, so I’ve been binding them as I finish enough to make up a sketchbook. But I was right about winter being a good time for binding. Today it was beautifully sunny but only 22 degrees – an ideal day to look at the clear blue sky (such a treat here in the Pacific Northwest) from my window as I stitched the book.

Fruit with Grisaille

2/4/14 Platinum Carbon ink, India ink grisaille, Van Gogh watercolors,
Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook

In Steve Reddy’s workshop over the weekend, we applied varying dilutions of India ink to our drawings as a grisaille underpainting before glazing with watercolor. We put the diluted India ink in small jars, which I knew wouldn’t work for me in the field because I often sketch standing up. I decided I’d try putting diluted ink in a waterbrush to see if it could be applied that way, since that’s the only way I could see myself using it on location.

I didn’t have time to go out for a sketch today, but I had 20 minutes for a still life (that’s my kind of still life – unlike the ones I spent hours on over the weekend). As we did in class, I applied a light dilution of India ink with a waterbrush, allowing it to dry between applications (it dried quickly in my well-heated studio). The synthetic waterbrush fibers weren’t quite as easy to control as the sable brush I was using in the workshop, but I use that mediocre waterbrush 98 percent of the time in the field, so I’m used to it. I was actually pleased with the results from that mediocre but hardworking waterbrush!

The only thing I’m not sure about with this technique is that the watercolor hues change when applied over the India ink grisaille. I know I have difficulty getting the values right with watercolors alone, so if the values of a sketch “read” more accurately with grisaille, then maybe that’s a good thing. But maybe if I just got better at painting watercolor values more accurately, I wouldn’t need the grisaille.

Of course, “just get better at” is easier said than done!

Like a Bad Haircut

2/3/14 Platinum Carbon ink, Kuretake Bimoji brush pen,
Zig markers, watercolor, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

If you live in a city with above-ground power lines, you’ve seen many trees like this: Parted through the middle like a bad haircut to make room for the lines. When they’re fully in leaf, trees like this look ugly and indignant, cheated out of what should be green and full tops. But bare, the same trees are strangely beautiful as their limbs negotiate around the straight, unyielding wires.

After spending all weekend in a dark classroom illuminated only with spotlights on our still lifes, it felt really good to get out this morning in the sunshine, even if the near-freezing temperature and harsh wind kept me inside the car.

More Stuff, This Time from Home (Steve Reddy Workshop, Day 2)

2/2/14 Platinum Carbon ink, India ink grisaille, watercolor, Canson mixed-media paper (second painting)

(For a summary of Day 1, see the previous post.)

At the end of class yesterday, we were told to bring in 10 to 12 objects that were unified by some kind of theme – color, shape, symbolic meaning, whatever. Since I was already planning to do some still lifes this winter of my parents’ belongings (you already saw my mom’s teapot last week), my theme was easy to identify. The pile I brought in looked very much like the pile of thrift store stuff we had sketched the previous day – except these were all things I grew up seeing at home.

2/2/14 Platinum Carbon ink, India ink grisaille, watercolor, Canson mixed-media paper
(first painting) 

As before, we applied a diluted India ink grisaille to our drawings first to establish all the values, then we painted with watercolor. This time I remembered to photograph the drawing with the grisaille applied but before I added color (below). The values in my first painting (at right) got a little too dark, and I lost some details. So I tried a second painting (above) with a new composition of fewer objects. This time I had better control of the values as well as of the whites that I reserved for shiny reflections, and the colors came out better, too.

Drawing with grisaille applied before painting.

(In case you’re curious, I’ll tell you about the objects in the composition at the top of the post. Clockwise from top: A vase painted with a haiku that my mother wrote; my father’s wristwatch; the monkey teapot; a wooden Daruma figurine, a hand-carved jewelry box [under the teapot and Daruma]; a burro flower pot; my mom’s prayer beads [on the burro’s ear].)

I spent nearly two hours on each of these paintings today – way more time than I ever spend on a still life! (Exhausted when I finished, I took a break by doing a quick sketch of my classmates busily at work (below).) It was an excellent workshop that taught me a lot about composition, values and “letting black do the work” while color takes the credit.

2/2/14 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen, Canson mixed media paper

Grisaille (Steve Reddy Workshop, Day 1)

2/1/14 Uniball Vision waterproof pen, India ink grisaille, Van Gogh watercolors,
Canson mixed-media paper (second painting)

Grisaille (pronounced griˈzī) is a painting term that I had never heard of until I talked to Steve Reddy at a sketchcrawl one day. When I viewed his new book, I got to see hundreds of examples of how he uses the grisaille technique that he learned as an oil painter and now applies to urban sketches and other watercolor paintings. And this weekend I got to learn the technique first-hand from Steve at his Gage workshop, “Illustrative Drawing.”

Yesterday morning we used crosshatching to practice identifying values. A long table in front of us was set up with huge piles of stuff from the shelves in the drawing studio to provide endless still lifes. (It was exactly the kind of miscellaneous, random stuff that Steve loves to sketch at thrift shops.)

2/1/14 Uniball Vision waterproof pen, India ink grisaille,
Van Gogh watercolors (value study and first painting)

In the afternoon we took our first shot at using grisaille ala Steve Reddy: varying dilutions of India ink that would dry permanently so that watercolor could be applied afterwards. (I meant to take a picture of my drawing after the grisaille had been applied but before color, but I forgot. See the next post for an example that I remembered to photograph.) Steve says of this technique, “Black does the work, but color takes the credit.” We also practiced Steve’s recommended style of composition that reveals as little negative space as possible – objects filling the entire compositional “frame” (at left).

The sketch at the top of this post was my second try at using grisaille with paint, but this time the composition style is more traditional (I cropped off the round object on the right digitally.)

2/1/14 Uniball Vision pen (value study with crosshatching)

See the next post for a summary of Day 2 of the workshop.