A Downtown Coffee Break

A few of us ended up at Paillard’s, a nice coffee shop in downtown Quebec.  I got a large café au lait in a bowl and settled into a seat with everyone.  Of course we all had sketchbooks and everyone started quick sketching everything and anything.

These sessions don’t yield great art.  That’s not the goal.  But it’s great practice for capturing things on paper, getting the old visual cortex thinking the way we need it to think.

I was working in a Stillman & Birn Alpha (8×5 landscape) and I started drawing the counter and the machines who live there.  No goal in mind other than to draw those machines.  When I finished with that I drank some coffee, talked too much, and started randomly drawing stuff, just filling a page.  I ended up with a chef’s head floating in my in my coffee.  It was fun.  Sometimes I want to do more careful drawing, sometimes not.  This was a not day.

Platinum Khaki Black As A Sketching Medium

Platinum has just released six new inks and you’ll probably be hearing about them over the next few months.  They will catch the eye of sketchers because they are iron gall inks that are fountain pen-friendly.  Iron gall inks have the virtue of being “waterproof” and those of us who like to slather our drawings with watercolor always pay attention when that word is thrown about.

I’ve found it odd that one could produce colored (besides brown or gray) iron gall inks because creation of iron gall inks is an old way of making ink, combines tannins with iron to create them.  Nevertheless, lots of inks are coming on the market and labeled “iron gall”, whether they’re red, blue, or purple.  Better living through chemistry, I guess.

In the case of these Platinum inks, however, the naming convention caught my attention as every one of them is named Platinum (some color)-Black.  I didn’t know what that meant but was excited enough to buy a bottle from Wonder Pens, who got it to me quickly.  This is a very pricey ink (roughly $30/bottle) so Wonder Pens’ low shipping costs was appreciated.

I’m not here to review this ink.  Lots of people who collect or write with fountain pens will do that so a search should yield reviews.  I find the ink great to sketch with, though, and have it in a couple pens right now.  But I want to talk about the waterproof attribute, or lack there of.  As it turns out, the “black” portion of these inks seems quite waterproof but the tint that generates their unique color does not appear to be…at all.

Notice the small sketches in the graphic below.  The one on the right reflects the color of the ink after it has dried for a while (it darkens as it dries).  On the left is what happens if you wipe a waterbrush over it.  As you can see, the brown tint disperses, leaving behind a dark gray outline.  This particular sketch was done on inexpensive paper.  On good watercolor paper the results are even worse.  So be warned, waterproof in the pen world doesn’t mean waterproof in the pen and wash world.

Can’t Get Enough Of Sketching Animals

Three of us headed back to the Federation of Hunters and Fishermen museum on Thursday.  We really love this place because the people are really nice, the facilities are great and because there’s soooooooo much to draw.  Once the snow melts it’s going to be a great outdoor site as well as they have hiking trails through a nature preserve that’s maintained by the organization.

I decided to draw a Merganser sitting on a post and, I’m afraid, I got more excited about the post than the duck.  Here’s the result in any case.  Hope you like it.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Pilot Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

We took a break, ate lunch, and then decided to do another, quicker sketch and my target was an otter.  I was trying to do more saturated watercolors this day and I’m not sure I succeeded but I did learn some things.  Practice, practice, practice.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Pilot Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Sometimes Sketching Doesn’t Take Time

My daughter came home for Easter and she wanted to go to our downtown area and wander around, so that’s what we did.  We’d been walking for a while and decided to sit down and take a short break.  As we sat, taking in spring sunshine and watching tiny icebergs floating down the St. Lawrence River, I asked if it would be ok for me to do a quick sketch, no more than 10 minutes.

The only sketchbook I had with me was a 3×5 Stillman & Birn Epsilon book (love these).  My pointy device was a Platinum Plaisir.  I chose a scene and started quickly sketching a piece of the Chateau Frontenac.  It took me less than 10 minutes and I added some color when I got home.  No plans were interrupted and no need for “I’m too busy to sketch.”  If you carry a pen and a small notebook, you always have time to sketch.  Besides, now I get to say that I’ve gotten to do TWO outdoor sketches this spring (grin).

Sketching Group Heads To Louise’s House

Louise is one of my favorite sketching buddies.  I call her mom, though I think she’s younger than I am.  This is mostly because I want her to adopt me so I can live in her incredible house.

That house was where all of us went last Tuesday.  She invited us out to sketch, chat and eat soup, the later being the best part.  On this day, however, it was raining so we were trapped inside one of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever gotten to sketch within.  Her husband is a master craftsman and his work exists everywhere in this house.  Louise is an artist and so her ‘eye’ is reflected everywhere, with great stuff to sketch everywhere you look.

I found myself standing in front of well-stocked bookshelves, looking at the dozens of artbooks and sketchbooks from others that she has accumulated.  I could have spent the entire day there but eventually I decided I should draw something.  I made a mistake, choosing this small cabinet as my subject.  I didn’t really have time to do it justice as lunch was scheduled and I had to finish by then.  Shouldn’t have spent so much time with the art books I guess.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Pilot Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

I’m not really pleased with the result but I’m sharing it anyway.  You win some and lose some.  We broke for lunch and spent the next hour or so eating the best mushroom soup I’ve ever had, cheeses, fruits and veggies.  I was so stuffed I wasn’t sure I’d ever move again.. and then she brought a wonderful apple cobbler smothered with pecans.  It’s been said that there’s always room for Jello but I learned that one can even make room for apple cobbler.

I waddled around the house the rest of the day, making lots of small sketches of smaller items on various shelves.  I have to confess that I’m too lazy to scan all those so you’re stuck looking at one ugly sketch.  Sorry.