If you’ve been following this blog you know that I’m spending some of my winter sketching time at our museum and its Paris 1900 exhibit.  This week I decided, without giving it sufficient thought, that I should sketch a huge black and white photo that’s projected on a wall.  It must be 12-14 feet tall and shows an indoor shopping area that, I understand, still exists today.

So I opened my Stillman & Birn 6×9 Zeta sketchbook, grabbed my TWSBI Mini, and started drawing.  Somewhere in the early stages I realized that I’d either chosen too large a subject, a sketchbook that was too small, or the TWSBI nib wasn’t fine enough.  Maybe the problem was a combination of all three of these things with a dash of my penchant for drawing everything.  Leaving stuff out is hard for me.  Whatever the reasons, the result was like the proverbial 10-pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound bag.

But I persevered because the process itself was fun – it’s always fun.  Lots of stuff to organize, proportion, and to draw.  I’m not sure what the woman in the middle was doing or carrying but you can see that several men were looking at her.  While the photo was a bit vague in its over-sized presentation, there was a large ‘something’ flowing out from her hands.  Maybe it was a shawl, a scarf or maybe a smoke bomb (grin).  It was impossible to say.  But I thought a bit of color would help center their gaze, and maybe yours.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black