Product Review: Calepino Notebook

Is it possible I’ve discovered the “grail” of pocket notebooks?

No. But pretty dang close.

When I realized that the latest Field Notes Workshop Companion edition contains paper that’s sketching-friendly (as defined by me, this means not just fountain-pen friendly but also able to withstand a light waterbrush wash without bleeding), I rejoiced – with two caveats: The paper has a (tolerably pale) dot grid, and the books are a limited edition, so they won’t be available indefinitely. Still, the sketching-friendly paper is certainly reason enough to rejoice, and I did – by buying more.

Two weeks later, I was reading the Pen Addict’s blog, where the Calepino notebook was reviewed. Although the paper is 60-pound weight (compared to Field Notes’ 70 pound), reviewer Jeff Abbott had nothing but good things to say about its fountain-pen-friendliness. Of course, he didn’t test it for sketching friendliness, so I didn’t wet my pants over the review, but here’s the sentence that made me bounce a few times on the couch: The notebook “comes in a nice variety of paper markings, from lined, blank, dot grid, and graph.” 

Blank?

While pocket notebooks in this form factor are a dime a dozen, finding one with blank paper is nearly impossible (the only one I know of that is ubiquitously available is the Moleskine Cahier, but don’t get me started on the paper in it!). I immediately ordered a three-pack from CW Pencil (which seems to be one of very few US retailers carrying the French-made Calepino).

Reverse side of sketch shown at left.

8/3/15 ink

I took the Calepino out this week, and my very first test (shown at right) got a frowny face. Although the paper is sufficiently opaque that there’s minimal (acceptable) ghosting, the back side of the sheet revealed small dots of water-soluble ink bleeding through where my fude fountain pen had paused momentarily. I made a heavy scribble at the bottom of the sketch, and when I washed it with a waterbrush, some of it bled through also. Washing other sketched lines did not bleed. But then a couple of pages later (below), I used another fude fountain pen containing a different water-soluble ink, and this time almost no bleeding was evident, even with washing. (Perhaps my hand was moving more continuously and fluidly on that sketch.)

8/3/15 ink

Reverse side of sketches shown at left.

My juicy Kuretake brush pen containing Platinum Carbon Black ink was surprisingly delightful to use on the Calepino – no bleeding at all, and the surface is smooth enough that the brush moved easily (below).

Although I typically wouldn’t use anything but a fountain pen in this type of notebook, I wanted to give it thorough testing. The other day I pulled out the entire mixed-media arsenal in my bag (except watercolor, which I wouldn’t expect any writing notebook to be able to take): waterproof Platinum Carbon Black ink in a fude fountain pen; water-soluble ink in a fude fountain pen; inks applied with waterbrushes; Zig marker; water-soluble colored pencils; light washing of the ink and colored pencils with a waterbrush (sketch shown at end of post). The fountain pen containing Platinum Carbon left a few telltale pen points on the reverse side, but none of the other media bled. Inks applied with waterbrushes buckled only minimally. All the media I tested passed acceptably. (Incidentally, since I rarely sketch with graphite, I didn’t test it, but the paper has just enough tooth that graphite would probably be as pleasant to use as colored pencils are.)

8/3/15 Kuretake brush pen

If it wasn’t for that minimal pen-point bleeding, the paper would be flawless. On the other hand, that completely blank page counts for a lot, as does the fact that the notebook is apparently available indefinitely. It’s not the grail, but it’s definitely a keeper.

(Now if only Field Notes would come out with a standard edition containing 70-pound, blank paper, or if Calepino upgraded to a slightly heavier stock, my life would be perfect. But since neither scenario is likely, I’ll relax and sketch on the notebooks I now have. After all, perfection is boring.)

8/4/15 inks, water-soluble colored pencils, Zig marker

Reverse sides of sketch above.

My order of Calepino notebooks from CW Pencil Enterprise
came wrapped in bright yellow paper tied with string and this
personal note -- a nice touch.

Clouds Over Gas Works

8/6/15 inks, brush pen, water-soluble colored pencils

As much as I go on about the virtues of sunshine and the intense shadows and colors it brings, I can also say a lot for clouds – especially when there’s enough space between them to let the shadows through.

This morning at Gas Works Park, where I sketched this same view from the top of Kite Hill a little more than a year ago, the breeze was strong (as you might guess it would be on a spot called Kite Hill). As the sun played hide-and-seek behind piles of cumulus, I was afraid I’d miss those stark shadows of the Gas Works if it ducked away for too long. Suddenly the sun appeared, so I quickly sketched the shadows first.

Marimba at the Market

8/5/15 Kuretake brush pen

Even before I had pulled up at the Wallingford Farmers Market, I could already hear the distinctive percussion rhythms that feel so summery: marimba! Not your typical buskers, Nyamuziwa Marimba Huru were performing under large trees that seemed a perfect stage set for their multi-tiered instruments. It was hard not to sway and dance to that festive music! But I resisted – at least while I finished the sketch.

Book Review: Archisketcher

I almost didn’t buy this book.

I’ve read nearly every book available with the words “urban sketching” (or similar phrases) in the title, and I occasionally go through my public library’s catalog or Amazon.com to see if any new titles have shown up. (Amazon is uncanny in its ability to let me know if a book I may be interested in has been newly published – amazing, isn’t it.) So when I heard about Archisketcher – Drawing Buildings, Cities and Urban Landscapes by Simone Ridyard, my first impulse was to buy it – but then I paused. Did I really need yet another book on urban sketching? What could this one offer that the others haven’t?

Unlike most others I’ve read, this book is written by an architect, which made me pause even longer. As much as I admire Simone’s urban sketches, I was worried that the book would have a stronger emphasis on architectural drawing (drawing buildings the way architects draw buildings) than I was interested in. Technical instructions on achieving three-point perspective? No, thanks.

Then I saw the photos and video flip-through on Parka Blogs. Even if there was nothing else to be gained from the book, at least it would be full of delicious eye candy: many luscious sketches by all my favorite urban sketchers. Who can resist candy?

Not me – and I’m certainly happy I didn’t resist after all! Filled with many different styles of urban sketching, this book has very little to do with drawing like an architect and everything to do with helping you make buildings come alive in your sketchbook. Its goal is not to teach you how to draw but to show a variety of approaches so that you can find and express your own.

The list of contributors reads like a who’s-who of contemporary urban sketching – Shari Blaukopf, Nina Johansson, Ch’ng Kiah Kiean, Suhita Shirodkar and Liz Steel are among the more than 40 artists worldwide – but my guess is that at least half are not architects, which I found inspiring in and of itself. “You don’t need to be an architect to sketch architecture confidently,” says Simone in the introduction, and a quick scan of the book would tell you that’s true.

Focusing on composition, color, viewpoint and other aspects of architectural sketching, Archisketcher expands on each aspect by showing multiple examples. Each of the book’s five main sections ends with “Sketching an Icon,” in which sketches by several artists of the same well-known structure (such as Notre Dame or the Brooklyn Bridge) are shown together. I found it fascinating to see how sketchers take on the same subject in such varied ways. In addition, each section highlights two urban sketchers showing their home towns in “My Neighborhood.” Both of these unique selections of sketches are especially inspiring and enjoyable to savor again and again.

One other unique feature of Archisketcher is the author’s particular viewpoint as an architect, which is apparent in brief but illuminating sidebars to many sketches. Simone might comment on the historical significance of a Moorish tower appearing in Alvarao Carnicero’s sketch, for example, or how the roofline of a city becomes its signature. As someone who has never studied architecture, even casually, I really appreciate this context and the opportunity to view a sketch the way an architect might.

Other than brief lessons on one-point and two-point perspective, the book contains no how-to instructions or basics found in most urban sketching books (such as suggested art materials or portability tips). For those reasons, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book to a novice. Instead, I’d say its audience is sketchers who have a few years of sketching under their belts and are now looking for ways to step-up their architectural sketching level. Perhaps that group includes sketchers who are comfortable with most subjects, but architecture still intimidates them. I could also see experienced sketchers who are comfortable with architecture nonetheless being inspired by the wide variety of approaches shown that could get them out of a potential sketching rut. There’s something here for almost everyone – and definitely candy for all.

(A shorter version of this review appears on Amazon.com.)

An Afternoon at the Zoo

8/3/15 ink

By this point in the summer, I normally would have visited Woodland Park Zoo several times, but for whatever reason, it’s been off my radar this year. I had heard that the temperature would only get up to about 80 today (instead of 90 the last couple weeks), so it was a good day to spend some quality time with animals.

Although the sketch doesn’t look like much, I was especially tickled to catch the Asian small-clawed otters all piled up in a community nap. Every other time I’ve seen them, they were chasing each other like squirrels – impossible to sketch! The two-toed sloth was another animal I’d never sketched before (my goal is to sketch every type of animal at Woodland Park at least once).

8/3/15 ink, colored pencil

Whenever I get frustrated by animals that walk off before I can finish, I take a walk through the Family Farm petting zoo, where the goats and sheep are usually lethargically chewing cud – probably the easiest of all zoo critters to sketch. And although I’ve sketched the hippo several times before, she’s impossible to resist.

8/3/15 inks

8/3/15 inks

8/3/15 inks

A (Nearly) Single Line Sketch (Plus Inky PSA)

8/2/15 brush pens

Using a continuous, single line to draw an object’s contour – sometimes without looking at the paper, which is called blind contour drawing – is one of those exercises that many how-to-draw books recommend. I’ve tried it numerous times, but only with still lifes, life drawing or my own hand – never while sketching on location.

Yesterday Larry Marshall had a compelling blog post about his attempts at single-line sketches on location, as recommended by Marc Taro Holmes in his free, downloadable tutorial, Making Expressive Pen and Ink Drawings on Location. I empathized with the frustrations Larry experienced, but I was also intrigued by the process. After reading Marc’s tutorial (which was a good review of some of the main concepts he covered in his book, The Urban Sketcher), I gave it a try.

Since today is Seafair Sunday, the culmination of a month-long summer celebration highlighted by clogged traffic everywhere, I decided that I would travel the shortest distance possible and still be able to call it “on location”: I walked out the French doors to the tiny deck off our bedroom and looked across the street to sketch a neighbor’s house. (It’s actually a fun house to sketch at different times of day.)

Instead of my typical fountain pen, I chose two sizes of hard fiber-tipped brush pens (not the kind with real brushes that I usually prefer). I used the finer one to do the continuous, single line drawing, and as Larry expressed doing, I spent a fair amount of energy strategizing how to keep the line moving without lifting it off the page. It’s like drawing with an Etch-a-Sketch! I found that all the trees and shrubs surrounding the house were a handy place to scribble over from one place to another. I had to cheat only once to add a line I realized I had missed after lifting my pen from the page. Then as Marc suggested, I used the larger-tipped brush pen to emphasize shadows. And as long as I had that pen in my hand, I went on to add more trees and an indication of the house next door. After that I cheated more deliberately by using a waterbrush to wash the water-soluble ink in the larger-tipped brush pen and put more shading in.

Having done only one sketch instead of five as Marc recommends, I found that my pen jerked rather than “flowed.” Still, I could already see the value of this type of practice in preventing me from getting bogged down with details and in gaining confidence with drawing quickly. This sketch took no more than five minutes. I’m going to try it again soon.

Now on to the public service announcement part of this post:

At left is the improvised cap liner I made to replace the one I
stupidly tossed out, making a continual mess of ink.

You know that thin, plasticy or foamy liner inside the lid caps of bottled ink? I didn’t realize it served a function, so when it fell out of the cap to my bottle of Sailor Jentle Doyou ink recently, I simply chucked it. The next time I went to fill my pen, I noticed that a large dribble of ink had dripped down the outside of the bottle, making a huge mess. No matter how carefully I wiped out the lid or the bottle mouth, the ink continued to pool and then dribble down every time I opened or closed it. It was then that I realized that the thing I casually tossed out actually served as a seal between the lid and the bottle mouth, preventing such drips. Such a simple thing yet with an important function!

The messy ink bottle label.

Risking ridicule for being the last person in a first-world country to know this (in which case, this PSA won’t serve many), I posted a cry for help on Facebook’s Fountain Pen Network. Literally within minutes, several helpful fountain pen users replied that the same kind of liner material can be found on other similar lids, such as those on vitamin bottles. I went through our supply of various emptied containers and found a liner of similar size. I cut it down to fit inside the Sailor Jentle lid, and voilà! Problem solved. I was told by one poster that without the seal, the ink would have evaporated over time, so I’m especially relieved to have solved the issue quickly.

Early Morning at Green Lake

8/1/15 ink, watercolor

Here in Seattle, we’ve been breaking all kinds of weather records this summer. Highest average temps, most number of days in the year with temps of 90 or higher, hottest July ever recorded, driest summer. Whew – even blogging about it makes me sweat!

One sure bet about heat in these parts, though, is that no matter how hot it gets during the day, it cools down overnight, so by early morning, it’s actually chilly enough to wear a sweater in the shade. Such was the case at 6:30 a.m. when I headed for Green Lake today. Last night’s Blue Moon was setting, and Mt. Rainier was clearly visible.

I rarely visit the Green Lake Starbucks because it’s almost always mobbed, especially on Saturday, but I arrived early enough that I found exactly the table I wanted. Although they aren’t oaks, this line of trees leading from the street to the lake always reminds me of Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana. Instead of an antebellum Big House, it’s the Green Lake community center at the other end. And unlike Louisiana this time of year, the air was still cool and crisp. The sunlight dappling the tree trunks changed by the second.

Even in spite of our broken heat records, I’d rather be here in the summer than just about anywhere else on earth.