Eek…I’ve been way for a while and haven’t posted anything here in five days. I just got home from Ottawa so I’m grabbing a couple smallish sketches I did while we were at the Bois du coulonge park. Not much to say about them except that the little pond sketch was done twice. The first time around I did it with washable ink without realizing it and when I started applying watercolors I generated a mess (grin). Anyways, I’ll get the blog back on track ‘real soon.’
Long ago I decided that the popular Lamy Safari was not the pen for me. There are two reasons for this. The first is that European XF nibs aren’t XF and to get a truly fine fountain pen nib requires purchase of an Asian pen. The other reason, however, is my real problem with the Safari. Its triangular grip may be fine for people writing with a fountain pen but I find it a real problem when I try to draw with it, mostly because I regularly move my hold point up and down the pen barrel and the triangular grip produces a lot of uncomfortable hold locations.
For some strange reason, though, I decided to try it again so I filled one with Platinum Carbon Black and went out walking. We’re finally getting decent weather and I so thrilled with being out walking that sketching is taking a back seat. The fact that my arthritis is causing my drawing hand to hurt may also have something to do with my reluctance to stop and sketch.
So when I was out I did a couple small sketches with the Lamy and my reassessment hasn’t changed my mind about it. It’s not for me. Here are the two small sketches I did. The thick line and my clumsiness combined to create, at best, “ok” results. It is nice to be able to be outdoors, though.
Last Thursday I had a meeting at Mount Herman Cemetery to plan an interaction between our sketching group and a haiku writing group. We’re planning a somewhat unique urban sketching event where we sketchers will meet at the cemetery and be teamed up with one or more haikuistes (is that a word?) and they will glean their inspiration from what, where or how we’re sketching. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and we’ll get to meet some creative people.
I got to the cemetery a bit early, though and I passed the time drawing a cemetery scene, though I had to cut it short because I ran out of time. This was where I ended up. I wonder if it could inspire a haiku poem (grin).
It got pretty windy when during our sketching session and because our temperatures are still cooler than normal, it got uncomfortable. We all started looking for a place to draw while out of the wind and I chose the leeward end of Maison Dorion, a large house that is the headquarters for the St. Charles River Society. I drew this scene.
Stillman & Birn Alpha (8.5×5.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black
I’m convinced that I’m the slowest sketcher on the planet. I’m not proud of being number one, but a man has to know who he is. Sketching isn’t a race but nevertheless, this is often a problem for me because I’d like to capture a scene without growing a beard at the same time.
I figure that the only way to crack this problem is to force the issue so this morning, I went to a park near “my river,” sat down and started drawing trees as quickly as I could. I did the pen work for this scene in about 25 minutes and reached for my color tools.
Oops…I’d forgotten my watercolor stuff. What I did have was a handful of watercolor pencils and the smallest waterbrush known to man. The pencils were ok for the color source but that waterbrush… yuck. It was woefully inadequate for the task. Nevertheless, I worked quickly and in less than 40 minutes I had this sketch.
Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black
This doesn’t compare well to Liz Steel doing a painting in the blink of an eye and it’s not even close to how long it takes me to do a one-minute sketch a’la Marc Taro Holmes, but for a scene with this many trees, I feel it was pretty quick.
I’m hoping to do a bunch of one-minute sketches and another bunch of continuous line drawings this summer. They won’t be as detailed as my normal drawings and certainly not as accurate. But I’m hoping these exercises will speed up my hand. Wish me luck.