Sometimes You Just Need A Challenge

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Larry Marshall

If you know Brenda Swenson’s “75-day Challenge”, you know the concept of casting aside the pencil, even for organizational purposes and sketching directly with pen. It’s said, and I believe it to be true, that doing so for a lot of sketches, will improve your ability to see and put what you see on paper. The process moves a lot of thinking to early in the process, ensuring that when you do lay down a line it’s in the right place.

I do a lot of ink work but typically use a pencil to lightly outline main masses and relationships in a sketch. But sometimes a guy just needs a challenge and I was feeling like one when I started looking at this railing and post.

I set up to sketch it (Stillman & Birn Zeta -5×8, Pilot Prera) and decided to do it ‘ink-only’, though I confess that I drew a pencil horizontal line at the top of the railing and a vertical line at the inside of the post. Then I got out my pen and stared. And then I stared some more, measuring, seeing, and occasionally putting a dot on my paper. Then I drew the lines… and the curves. For me it was a struggle with all the curved wrought iron to render. And there are screw ups… there are always screw ups. It’s my signature move. But generally, I like the results and had a lot of fun with the process.

While Walking Through The Park One Day….

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Yvan and I planned a sketching session on St. Denis street and we were to meet there. This street has many majestic residences and a large grassy area in front of them so it’s an ideal place to sketch.

As I arrived I realized that I’d forgotten my WalkStool. This is a big problem as my knees and me don’t much like sitting on the ground, for fear that we’ll never be able to get back up.

And so the search began for a sitting place with something in front of me to sketch. It’s not really rocket science but I wandered around for a while before finding such a combination. I ended up in the Parc des Governeurs, a small park between the Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City’s tourist landmark and the American consulate.

Both of these buildings are great sketching subjects but I chose this more humble structure that sits in the park. Yvan suggested that it was once a toilet but these days it looks to be used by maintenance people. In any case, it had a bench, in the shade, and so I sketched it in my Stillman & Birn Zeta (5×8) with a Pilot Prera and Platinum Carbon Black ink. I used Lexington Gray for the stairs in the background. I’m enjoying the contrast between these two inks. As always, I used Winsor & Newton watercolors like crayons to add some color.

Do You Sketch Small?

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’ve always carried a small sketchbook with me for doing quick-sketches of things. But more and more I’ve been sketching in 5×8 or 10×7 sketchbooks. Working larger is fun and lets me ‘stretch’ my gaze a bit more. The result is that my small sketchbook became a cheap dollar store sketchbook that wouldn’t tolerate watercolors while my larger sketchbooks are all Stillman & Birn, first-class sketchbooks. The ‘gap’ between small and large had become greater in my sketching.

So I tried one of Stillman & Birn’s 4×6 sketchbooks. In fact, I’ve nearly filled two of them. The paper is fantastic, as always, but a 4×6, thick sketchbook is too ‘big’ to be called a ‘small’ sketchbook, at least for this street sketcher. I need something I can stuff in a pocket.

And so I bought a Moleskine watercolor book. I don’t much like its landscape layout but it’s tolerable in this small size. The larger one is almost painful to manage if you try to balance it on your knee while sitting on a stool, which is my typical approach. I do wish they’d produce a portrait format sketchbook with their watercolor paper. Heck, what I really wish is that Stillman & Birn would produce a thin (30pages?) 3×5 sketchbook with their Epsilon paper. Then I’d be a very happy sketcher.

This is a Celtic Cross in Artillery Park. 3x5 and done with a Pilot Prera.

This is a Celtic Cross in Artillery Park. Done with a Pilot Prera.

Anyways, I’ve started doing small pen & ink watercolors again and I’m really enjoying it. I thought I’d share some with you. All of these were done in the tiny Moleskine. I’ll mention the pen used in captions.

Factory building along the Riviere St. Charles. Sakura Micron 01.

Lamp on Plains of Abraham. Uniball Signo UM-151 “brown-black” .28

Cast metal fountain on Plains of Abraham. Pilot Prera, Platinum Carbon Black.

Large light inside the Kent Gate. Pilot Prera.

Cartier-Brebeuf Park. Pilot Prera

Pilot Prera w/Platinum Carbon Black

Uniball Signo UM-151 For Sketching

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’m a fountain pen guy but I’m a sucker for a new pointy device regardless of type. Pete Scully, a well-known urban sketcher swears by Uniball Signo UM-151 pens and uses them regularly. I’ve never found any of the fine tip versions in the stores around here but I finally decided to order a couple from Jet Pens.

And I’m glad I did!! I’m a fan of Pilot’s Hitec-C3 and C4 pens as they’ve got very fine points, don’t wear down like the nylon-tip pens, and they have replacable cartridges. Unfortunately, they’re not waterproof so I can’t use them when I want to use watercolors with my pen/ink sketches.

The Uniball Signo UM-151 pens, in .28 and .38 mm sizes solve that problem as their inks are pigment-based and thus are waterproof. I bought mine in ‘brown-black’ as I wanted a dark brown pen and haven’t been able to find a brown/waterproof fountain pen ink that makes me happy. I should say, up front, that I don’t understand Uniball’s tip dimensions except to say that the line width is less than the size of the tip, which is fine but it’s hard for me to report the actual line width for comparison to other pens.

Mitsubishi, manufacturers of Uniball pens says that their .7mm pens produce a .4mm line. I couldn’t find a similar description of the .28 and .38mm pens. What I can say is that the .28mm line is significantly finer than that from a Micron 005, which is claimed to be .20mm. In any case, it’s fine…and when hatching a small sketch, it’s just dandy…or ‘peachy’ as my dad used to say.

I’ve only had the pens a couple days so I can’t say much about long-term performance except to say that the rollerball should hold up better than the fine nylon tip pens, which I find wear down annoying fast. As replacement cartridges cost only $1.65 from Jet Pens, ink capacity isn’t much of a problem either.

Here’s my first test drive of the pen. I used the .28mm on this tiny Rhodia pad (3×4). The pen doesn’t skip a beat. Stippling works better than I expected from a ball-tip pen, though if you stipple a lot, you need to roll it occasionally on a piece of scrap if the ball goes dry. Otherwise it’s a point-and-shoot device.

I was sitting on my porch, waiting to head out for a day of sketching in the country, and I used the Pilot Signo to draw this Impatiens flower in a Strathmore Series 400 “Drawing” sketchbook. Notice that even with the pink, there’s not bleed from the brown-black ink. Makes me very happy.

These pens come in a bunch of colors and after seeing a couple sketched by Pete where he used the dark green, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those. For myself, the .38mm is a better pen for sketching 5×8 or larger but the .28mm is a treat for details, hatching, and when you’re working small (eg – 3×5).

The best part of these pens is that they’re CHEAP!!! From Jet Pens they’re only $2.50 and replacement cartridges only $1.65. The bad news is that individual cartridges are only available in blue, black, red and, blue-black. I’m hoping they make brown-black available ‘real soon.’

Today I went out for an early morning walk along the river. I sat down on a bench to watch a family of ducks and before you could say ‘fanatical sketcher’ I had my little Strathmore doodle book in hand and I was scribbling out this sketch with the Uniball UM-151-28 pen. It’s about 3×5 in size and all I had was a small waterbrush to add color. Given the small amount of time consumed on this quick sketch, I like the result and my new UM-151 pen.

Sketching Between Rain Days

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Larry Marshall

We’re still getting more rain than we should and certainly more rain than I want. But we got a weekend that only started under rain and high winds. We ended up with slightly damp conditions and warm temperatures. There was this scary yellow ball in the sky. Not sure what that was but it seemed harmless enough.

Yvan and I took advantage and we went to Artillery Park, an area in old Quebec City that has a bunch of old military buildings and fortifications. It’s also where a munitions factory operated until 1964. Now the large buildings are museums surrounded with park areas, cannons and high walls – a great place to sketch. And we did.

I sketched a building called Redoubte Dauphine. It’s an impressive structure and I set up at the base of it, sitting on the edge of a parking lot. I sort of botched the perspective by placing a couple lines incorrectly. As I didn’t want to restate them in their correct locations, I made the best of it and finished it with the wonky angles. Do me a favor and squint a lot when you look at the sketch. Maybe you won’t notice (grin). The sketch was done in a Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7) sketchbook with a Pilot Prera and Lexington Gray.

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It was very hazy and cloudy so I decided to return to add color/details, when there was some sun to provide contrast. I packed up and went looking for Yvan. I located him, sitting high above me on a wall. In fact, I noticed that you can see him as a tiny orange blotch on the right of the photo above. He was sketching something and I thought it’d be fun to do a quick sketch of him. I did it in my Stillman & Birn Alpha (4×6) with a Pilot Prera and Platinum Carbon Black.

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I climbed the hill you see in the first sketch and entered a tiny park area associated with what was once an officer’s quarters. I liked the shape of the end of that building and so quickly sketched it. Same small sketchbook; same pen/ink.

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2013-06-29OldBuildingSite The eastern edge of Artillery Park is bordered by an old rock fence. On the other side of it there’s a grand old apartment building that’s no longer inhabited and, sadly, it’s crumbling from neglect. It pokes its second story above the rock wall and I liked the view, of the back of the building and so I sketched it. Same sketchbook, same pen, same fun experience. Every sketching day is a great day.

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