Fog Behind Maples

9/12/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

After sketching the fog over Green Lake, I walked to my favorite stand of maple trees for another seasonal sketch. (To see my series of sketches marking the seasonal changes in this stand of maples, scroll down to the labels at right and choose “seasonal maples.”)

Whenever I intend to paint a sketch, I automatically grab a Lamy filled with Platinum Carbon ink – my waterproof ink of choice – for the line work. But since I’ve been using my Sailor filled with Diamine Chocolate Brown lately, I tried something new this time: I did the line work with that water-soluble ink instead. It’s a nice warm brown that washes with a reddish hue – just right for these trees that are definitely showing touches of red and orange. Against the backdrop of the foggy sky and lake, they seemed to blaze even more brightly.

I guess there’s no more denying it.

Foggy Mornings

9/12/13 Watercolor, Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

We’ve been starting our days with a thick layer of fog the past couple weeks. Apparently it’s been foggy in Charleston Harbor, Oregon, too, because Elva Paulson made some remarkable paintings of pelicans in the fog. When I saw them yesterday on her blog, I was stunned by their beauty, and she inspired me to get out to Green Lake this morning to sketch the fog.

Unfortunately, my sketch didn’t capture any wildlife, unless you count the (construction) crane on the horizon.

Best of Both Worlds

9/11/13 Platinum Carbon, Diamine Grey & Choc. Brown inks

You know the rule about not wearing white after Labor Day? In Seattle, I think the rule should be that we don’t sweat after Labor Day. I know I’ll probably be struck down by lightning for saying this, especially since I’ve been whining about the imminence of fall for more than a month, but I’m saying it anyway: It’s 93 degrees today, and that’s too dang hot for September!

I had a little time before my yoga class, so I was going to sit at a nearby outdoor coffee shop table to sketch. But when I walked into the lovely air-conditioned café to get my beverage, I couldn’t get myself back out the door. Instead, I was delighted to find a comfy couch right next to a large window looking out at the very tables that I might have been sweating at. I was hoping some people more heat-hearty than I am would sit down out there so I could sketch them, but I guess everyone else was just as wimpy.

No matter. Comfortable in the AC’d room, sipping my iced Americano, sketching a sunny view dappled by tree shade – I’m good with that.

9/11/13 Diamine Eclipse and Diamine Grey inks

Product Review: Getting Loose with the Sailor

9/7/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen, 100 lb. paper

Over in the Sketching Forum, we’ve been talking about various fountain pens that can make variable line widths. Most of them are of the flexible variety – a nib springy enough that if you put pressure on it, the nib will respond with a wider line. Noodler’s makes a line of popular, inexpensive flexible-nib pens (I hated mine so much that it ended up on my Bottom 10 list). And the Namiki Falcon is a high-end example.

Anyway, a couple of us on the thread got seduced by GouletPens.com’s video about the Platinum Cool pen – one of few inexpensive pens with a flexible nib – but, unfortunately, neither of us is crazy about it. Although it’s pleasant to write with, I find that I have to apply so much pressure on the nib to get a wider line that I can’t draw with it. As an afterthought to the complaint, I started talking about how I’ve grown to love my Sailor fountain pens with the angled “ski jump” nib, and I realized I hadn’t written a review of them yet.

I’ve had a Sailor DE Brush Stroke Style Calligraphy Fountain Pen for several months now, and I’m very fond of its basic performance – comfortable in the hand, smooth nib, no rough starts, no leaks or blobs – so much so that I bought a second one with a different angle. I keep both filled with water-soluble inks, and they have become my pens of choice for monochrome sketches shaded with a waterbrush. They make especially sensitive lines when sketching people.

(By the way, the term “calligraphy” in its name is confusing and unfortunate. The term refers to Asian calligraphy, not western italic calligraphy.)

But I admit that for most of the time I’ve owned them, I usually forgot to take advantage of the angled nib that enables variable line widths and mainly used the tip the way a conventional nib is used. It’s only been in the past couple months that I have been consciously attempting to make more expressive sketches by varying the line width.

This tree I sketched at Marymoor Park is a good example (I posted it a few days ago, but I thought I’d show it larger here). If I had used one of my Lamy pens (which I still prefer for permanent ink lines before applying watercolors), I know this tree would not have come out the same, because I would have had to hatch it to get the dark areas. But the Sailor enables laying down thick lines in a hurry, so it encourages me to be looser. In this case, I was also trying to emulate (not always successfully) the way tree limbs taper off toward the end by laying down a thicker line at the trunk and then lifting it more toward the end of the stroke. Then I just scribbled a bit with a waterbrush for shading.

The more I use it, the more I like it, so I think my exploration of this pen is just beginning.

Updated reviews as my love affair with the Sailor has turned into a long-term relationship:

6/16/14 Pen Update: Still Dancing with the Sailor
7/24/14 A Waterproof Dance with the Sailor (using the Sailor with Platinum Carbon Black ink)
7/29/14 Product Review: Sailor Profit Fude De Mannen Fountain Pen (which has an identical nib as the Sailor calligraphy pen reviewed here)

Experience Music Project Museum

9/9/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Zig markers,
Diamine Grey ink, 140 lb. paper

Ever since the Seattle Urban Sketchers met at the Seattle Center last holiday season, I’ve been thinking about returning to sketch at the Experience Music Project Museum. At the time, I had briefly considered sketching in the EMP lobby. Ultimately, I was overwhelmed by the unusual space and especially the formidable Guitar Gallery sculpture visible from the lobby, so I ended up sketching at the skating rink and Armory instead.

With eight more months of sketching chops since then (she said, boldly), I was ready to take on the Guitar Gallery today. I don’t know if the size of this amazing piece of work – made of actual guitars and other instruments – is apparent in my sketch, but I couldn’t get it all in. In fact, photographing it in one shot is impossible unless you have a particularly wide wide-angle lens (which my phone fell far short of).

9/9/13 Diamine Eclipse, Grey and Chocolate Brown inks, Sailor pens, Zig markers, 100 lb. paper

EMP is one of those places where I feel conflicted: I’m torn between wanting to see all the exhibits and wanting to sketch. But in a large museum like that where one could easily spend all day, I usually have a better experience if I take my time in a few exhibits rather than try to see all of them in a cursory manner. With that in mind, I spent most of my time in the Icons of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic exhibits. I first sketched the harpoon gun used by Sigourney Weaver in “Alien” (1979). Then I took a wider view of the exhibit area that included an Anubis guard helmet worn in “Stargate” (1994). By the time I finished sketching the head of a caged dragon (whose glowing red eye opened briefly as I sketched), it was time to go have lunch with my friend Gary. The dragon’s tail will have to wait until next time.

9/9/13 Diamine Eclipse and Grey inks, Sailor pen, 100 lb. paper

9/9/13 Diamine Chocolate ink

Marymoor Park

9/7/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, 140 lb. paper

9/7/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, 100 lb. paper

Since we’d already paid our toll to get across the 520 bridge to the Bellevue Arts Museum, we decided to keep going east and spend the afternoon at Marymoor Park. Host to outdoor concerts, a popular off-leash dog park (with a dog wash nearby!) and playfields, this huge park is also home to the historic Clise Mansion. Apparently Mr. Clise, a Seattle banker, built the park’s iconic windmill on his property, but the windmill has never been functional.

The composition I had in mind when I started this sketch of the windmill included a gnarly old tree nearby (you can see a bit of it on the left side), but as often happens with my sketches, I ran out of space. So I decided to devote a couple of sketches to the tree itself from different angles.

9/7/13 water-soluble pencil, Diamine Grey ink, 100 lb. paper

Wit and Wisdom

9/7/13 Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink, 100 lb. paper

A 50-year retrospective of local ceramics artist Patti Warashina’s work is currently on view at the Bellevue Arts Museum (through Oct. 27). “Wit and Wisdom” is an ideal name for this stunning exhibition of whimsical yet thoughtful pieces, most of which feature amazingly expressive female figures. Catch this show if you can (it’s worth paying the toll on the 520 bridge)!