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.’
With decent weather coming late this year, I’m in the mood to walk, and walk, and walk. My pedometer has been smoking hot from all the activity. At the same time, my arthritic hand has been giving me fits and so it’s been hard for me to be motivated to sketch.
But small formats fit into the walks and don’t pain the hand too much so I’ve used my trusty 3.5×5.5 Stillman & Birn Epsilon book to work some sketching into my walks. Here’s a couple of those results. I might have gotten carried away with the color but I’m trying to figure out the why and how other sketchers do this sort of thing. I think I like the results. Do you?
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