Tag Archives: Platinum Carbon Black

A Couple Hours On Ile d’Orleans

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Ile d’Orléans is a large island just east of Quebec City.  It’s farm country and we locals go there to pick strawberries, apples, raspberries, and to buy corn and other vegetable crops when in season.  It’s also a place where sketchers, at least one, spend time enjoying the fresh St. Lawrence River air.

The family piled into the car for a trip there last weekend.  In hindsight we were overly optimistic as it was far too windy and cold to be on the island.  Of course, we went for the ice cream.  There’s a place that dips ice cream cones in very thick, milk chocolate so you end up eating a very cold chocolate bar with a soft center.  What’s not to like.

After consuming enough calories to keep me going for about a week, we headed down the road looking for something to draw.  While it’s not officially open for tourists yet, we ended up at the maritime museum.  There were choices to be made.  Wander around in the cold or sit in the car and draw.  My family chose the former; I chose the later.

2013-09-30IleD'OrleansBoat

The result of my isolation was 1) my family got very cold and 2) I drew this building which is a wood shop in which many chaloupes (large row boats) were built.  I’ve included a sketch I did in 2013 of one of those boats as well as the building sketch I did this time.

2015-05-16IleD'OrleansShop

Mustache Notebooks For Sketching

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If I were a fish, the ideal lure to catch me would be one that looked like a notebook or pen.  Maybe a Red Lamy with some Field Notes hung on the back.  Yeah, that would do it.

I cruise the stores, looking at every notebook and pen I can put my hands on.  In a way I’m lucky that the selection in Quebec City is so poor or I’d need a second house to hold my collection.  One of my favorite places is the dollar store.  It’s not because I’m cheap; my favorite sketchbooks are Stillman & Birn, after all.  I don’t scrimp on my ‘regular’ sketching surfaces.

I check the dollar stores regularly for cheap, small notebooks in which I do the quick-sketching I do as often as possible.  I’ve filled about 20 of them in the past three years, though their contents have only rarely made their way to this blog.  These are 3×5 or 4×6 books that generally cost me a couple bucks and contain 75-100 pages.  I scribble in them constantly.

MustacheBooks

MustacheLayersSo I was in a dollar store this afternoon and found a new item – mustache notebooks.  The neat thing about them is that they have both toned (light brown) paper and white paper.  There are 96 pages divided into 6 stitch-bound signatures, with the white signatures in the middle of the book.  The covers are simple brown cardboard with felt mustaches and glasses glued on them.

Kinda cute but it was the blank paper inside that caused me to snap up three of them for $2 each.  Suddenly it was a great day.  As I was walking home I couldn’t resist the urge to try out the paper so I stopped in a park and got out my Namiki Falcon with Platinum Carbon Black in it.

2015-05-21Parc Generally the paper in these cheap books isn’t the greatest, and my fountain pens tend to bleed through a bit and there’s always ghosting.  These are quick-sketch books, after all, so I overlook those failings.

The paper in these books is quite thick, however.  I’m guessing but I’m guessing 70-80lb paper.  And was I pleasantly surprised when I put ink to paper.  There is no feathering whatever, at least in this quick sketch but more important was what was on the back of this sketch – NOTHING.  There is no ghosting and no bleedthrough.  I’m going back tonight to buy some more.

Back of the sketch above

Back of the sketch above

Warm Up With Small, Quick Sketches

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Sometimes, when I’m out walking/sketching I start with some small, quick sketches, done in an inexpensive 3×5 or 4×6 sketchbook.  This gets the juices flowing but also, this allows me to capture little scenes or things that I would otherwise pass by.

I’ve been doing a lot of them this week, mostly because I’m so thrilled by the sun that I just want to walk around in it rather than sit for extended periods sketching.  I’m getting a good tan (grin).  These quick-sketches also give me a chance to play with different approaches and I’m convinced that they have teach me more than any of my longer sketches.  Here are a couple examples:

3x5 sketchbook, Namiki Falcon, PCB and Kuretake #13 brush pen w/PCB

3×5 sketchbook, Namiki Falcon, PCB and Kuretake #13 brush pen w/PCB

3x5 sketchbook, Namiki Falcon w/PCB.

3×5 sketchbook, Namiki Falcon w/PCB.

Parliament Statues Are Great Subjects…Sometimes

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Quebec’s Parliament building and grounds are over-grown with statues.  Some are very nice, some not so much.  One thing is certain, Quebec owns a lot of bronze.

I agreed to meet my buddies to sketch a Native American fisherman, one of the really nice statues.  It resides in a fountained grotto right below the main entrance to Parliament.  As it turned out, we met at a bad time and on a bad day to sketch it.

There were workmen dissecting the fountain and doing repairs so we sat next to a hulking truck and had to locate so we wouldn’t be in the way of the work crew. Worse, however, was the sun, which was positioned so that the statue was in dark shade, making it very hard to see.  I’ll probably go back and sketch it again, but very early in the morning when the sun would be shining into the grotto where the statue resides.

Still, we had fun, as we always do.  Here’s my result, such that it is.

Stillman & BIrn Beta (9x12), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & BIrn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black