Collectif Rendevous At The Museum Of Civilisation

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Larry Marshall

The Collectif group in Quebec City held its annual rendevous at Quebec’s Musée de la civilisation last Saturday. Unfortunately, a bunch of the regulars were playing snowbirds in one for or another and so turnout was down from previous years. Nevertheless, we had a great time.

I started sketching in the Egypt exhibit, where I drew this pharoah mask. I used Faber-Castell Albrecht-Durer watercolor pencils for color. It’s hard to deal with color in that exhibit because it’s so dark so it’s hard to know what you’ve got until you’re done and eating lunch (grin).

Fabriano Artistico CP, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Falcon

I took a short break by wandering around a bit and when I saw this large Australian aboriginal totem I had to translate it to paper. Pretty simple drawing. Lots of fun. It’s good to be back out sketching.

Fabriano Artistico CP, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Metropolitan

Cruising Down The Nile

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Egyptian culture was inseparable from the Nile River. It was a source of water, provided fertile soils for agriculture, fish were a ready protein supply, and the bullrushes that grew along its banks provided material for baskets, floor mats, and other Egyptian stuff.

But heck, you gotta suppose that Egyptians used it for fun too. Swimming might not have been a great idea because the Nile was home to crocodiles but how about hopping in the family yacht and going for a cruise. Egyptians must have done that. And one of the objects in our museum’s Egyptian exhibit is a large (4-feet long) wooden model of an Egyptian boat, complete with several people standing on deck. It seemed that sketching it was the right thing to do. Hope you like it.

Fabriano Artistico cold-press, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Metropolitan F

How To Get A Fine Nib Pilot Metropolitan

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Larry Marshall

By most accounts, the Pilot Metropolitan is a pen that provides a lot of bang for the buck. It writes smoothly, feels good in the hand, and it’s simply the best looking $15-20 pen I’ve seen. It’s a metal-bodied pen which allows it to resemble a more expensive pen.

There’s one problem with it. You can only buy it with a medium nib. It’s unclear why as Pilot typically provides the fine and medium options for their pens and you can even get a stub italic Prera.

Metro above, 78G below

While the Pilot medium is finer than most European medium nibs, it’s not fine enough for my sketching needs. It occurred to me that there might be a solution to this in the form of the Pilot 78G, which can be had via eBay for almost no money and it’s sold with fine, medium, or broad nibs. And guess what? These nibs are compatible with the Metropolitan feed, right down to the little indexing pin. All you have to do is pull the 78G nib out and put it in the Metropolitan and, voila, a Metro with a fine nib.

Note the gold, 78G, fine nib

So, why not just use the 78G? There’s nothing wrong with the 78G that a better, heavier plastic wouldn’t cure. But I can’t help shake the feeling that I’m using a really cheap pen when I’m using them.

Lamy Safari vs Pilot Metropolitan for Sketching

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Since I posted my review of the Pilot Metropolitan and talked about its use in recent posts, I’ve had several people ask me questions that all relate to the same thing: how does it compare to the Lamy Safari? I make no claims to doing exhaustive reviews of pens but I thought it might help some if I talked a bit about how I see the differences. Obviously I can’t do that objectively; every word of such a discussion is steeped with personal opinion. But maybe I can isolate some concepts and let you evaluate my biased analysis.

Esthetics and Feel

While esthetics and feel are mostly personal parameters, it is safe to say that the Metropolitan is a cleaner, more traditional design. Some people complain about the triangular nature of the grip on the Lamy and while that’s not a problem for me, the Metropolitan grip is smooth and round. Both pens are quite tail heavy when posted and both long enough to write with comfortably without posting.

The Safari offers more color choices, and availability of colors changes regularly. Lamy is about to release a flourescent yellow version which has me saying “WHAT are they thinking?” but some might like it. The Metropolitan comes in black, silver and gold, with some subtle trim choices.

The Lamy can be converted from cartridges using Lamy’s Z26 converter while the Pilot pen uses the CON-50. In my opinion, The Z26 is a bit nicer but as I fill all my pens using a pen syringe it doesn’t really matter to me. Any tube in a storm, to muck up a metaphor.

The Safari is a fatter pen which may make a difference for those with small hands. The Metropolitan is made of brass while the Safari is plastic, though you can by Lamy’s All-Star if you want an aluminum pen.

One thing that might affect sketcher choices is that we like to turn our pens upside down to get a thinner line. Doing this with the Safari completely changes the feel of the pen, but not at all for the Metro.

I own three Lamy pens and only on Metropolitan but the Pilot nib seems smoother on papers I use.

Operation/Internals

Safari can be bought with a variety of nibs and it’s easy to buy and replace nibs so you can have one pen and swap out the nibs if you like. Metropolitans come in only medium, though from what I can see, Pilot also sells a Cocoon pen that seems identical to the Metropolitan but it’s available with a fine nib at more than twice the price of the Metropolitan. I don’t know why.

A quick word about nibs is in order. Lamy is a European manufacturer and uses a European sizing scale for its nibs. Pilot is an Asian company and uses an Asian scale. For any particular nib ‘name’ (eg – F), the Asian system will be finer than the European system. When comparing my XF Safari nibs to the M nib of the Metropolitan, I find that the Metropolitan M lays down a line just a tiny bit THINNER than my Safari XF pens. That said, my Lamys have been used a lot while the Metropolitan is fairly new. The Metropolitan is very near that of a Sakura Micron 02 if you’re familiar with those.

It’s a small thing but I find Lamy pens to be a bit more ‘sloppy’ when filling them by dipping into an ink bottle. They must be plunged deeper than Pilot pens. As I don’t do this at all I simply avoid the problem.

Misc

Lastly, the Pilot Metropolitan ($20) is cheaper than the Lamy Safari ($25). Thos prices are from Goulet Pens. Converters for them are about the same price. Safari has ubiquitous support; it’s every seller’s ‘beginner pen’. While Pilot pens are readily available, the sheer numbers of Lamy users gives ‘support’ to the Lamy pen.

If you have any questions about either of these pens, or any pen for that matter, I’d be happy to discuss it with you. I was a pen junky long before I became a sketcher. You can also see how these pens write (in the nib nook) and even buy them at Goulet Pens.

Conclusion

In the end, choosing a pen comes down to a bunch of personal preferences. For myself, I use a Pilot Prera (F) as my every day sketching pen. I like its fine line, smooth and flawless operation, and I like the fact that I can post the pen and, being short, the balance works out ‘just right.’ This is a bonus to me as a street sketcher as I don’t have to worry about losing the cap.

But lately the Pilot Metropolitan has become my pen of choice for quick-sketching people, something I’m doing a lot of lately because it’s so cold outside. Its slightly thicker line works better for this purpose and the fact that it’s inexpensive makes it a happy replacement for my Lamys, which remain in my arsenal but, by comparison, they’ve lost a bit of their charm for me. Well, except for my lime green Lamy which is the greatest color ever (grin).

Urban Sketchers Always Have Things To Draw

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Larry Marshall

If your interests lie in drawing naked people, you need a model. If you paint landscapes, you need to go to pretty places. If you’re into aviation art, you need to hang out at airports or aviation museums. But if you’re an urban sketcher, all you have to do is live your life with a sketchbook in your hand. There’s always something to sketch. I’m an urban sketcher.

I went for some blood tests yesterday and, of course, I had my sketching stuff with me. From past experience I knew I’d have 10-15 minutes to wait before Dracula called me to be poked and so I checked in, sat down, and got out my sketchbook. I thought about sketching a wheelchair that was sitting in the corner, or the receptionist’s area. But I noticed a steady flow of people walking up to the receptionist, where you have to shove our paperwork through a slot; they confirm who you are, and then the receptionist provides instructions which mostly amount to ‘go sit down and we’ll call you.’

So I started quick-sketching these people. It was a study in quickly grabbing the outlines of coats, purses and legs because you couldn’t see their heads, which were behind partitions that divided the 3 reception windows. And it was fun. My waiting time went by too quickly.

Here are three examples of those sketches. Simple, good practice, and fun. Done in a Strathmore ‘toned’ paper sketchbook with a Pilot Metropolitan and Waterman Absolute Brown ink. A bit of it was quickly washed into a form of shading using a waterbrush.