Next week the OneWeek100People challenge starts, where you try to draw 100 people in five days. I participated in the challenge last year and really enjoyed it and found it to be a great way to practice my portrait sketching. This year I plan on participating but as my hands are still far from 100% well (my neuropathy has gotten better but still hasn’t left me and brushwork is a bit of an agony), I will take more than 5 days to draw 100 people. Meanwhile, I went on a walk and sketched a bit today. Here’s the resulting spread:
Sketch on Stillman and Birn Alpha with Schmincke and Daniel Smith watercolours, De Atramentis Document Ink Grey, Caran d’Ache Saffron and Diamine Festive Joy
Sketched this spread despite my hands killing me throughout the sketch. I still have poor control over the brush but I sketched it despite that because I really missed drawing. So glad that I got it done.
Here are some process photos:
Initial sketch with watercolour pencil.First pass with colour.Second pass with colour and ink.First pass for the drawing on the bottom right.
We had our weekly zoom call with our old family friend, Joe. I did my best to sketch him while we talked. It was slow, hard work and came out only so-so, mainly because my neuropathy is really bad lately (which is also why there’s been a dearth of posts). Still, I’m glad that I tried.
Sketch of our old friend, Joe.
Drawn with a Lamy LX Palladium, fine nib, filled with Diamine Harmony (an Inkvent 2021 ink).
Writing done with a PenBBS 535 Year of the Ox, RF nib, filled with Pilot Iroshizuku Ina-Ho.
The sketchbook is a Stillman and Birn Alpha 5.5’’ x 8.5’’.
Today’s fountain pen is also my first fountain pen, the wonderful Waterman Phileas. It’s filled with Diamine Ruby Blues from the Diamine Inkvent 2021 calendar.
My hands have been an utter nightmare this week and I’m only now starting to feel a slight improvement in my neuropathy. This is the most that I’ve been able to draw and type all week.
I’ve been trying to draw better foliage, which made me want to investigate the various greens I can mix from my current palette. So for the first time I dedicated time and a few sketchbook pages to experiment with green watercolour mixes. I thought that the process would be tedious and boring, but it ended up being very interesting. Mixes that looked like mud on the palette came to life on the page. I discovered a whole host of green hues that I had no idea that I had access to. And once again I fell in love with Schmincke’s Glacier Green.
Note: DS stands for Daniel Smith and Sch for Schmincke. The paper is Stillman and Birn Alpha.
I’m playing with green watercolour mixtures and drawing better foliage, so I took the opportunity to make this quick line sketch during one of my walks. I worked on the watercolours later, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
While I was taking a walk a few days ago I saw this tree branch grow out of a tiny crack in a solid stone wall and I was impressed enough by its tenacity and resilience to draw it. By chance this drawing is on the opposite page of the one I made for my last health update, which seems appropriate.
I underwent a PET CT on the 9th of September, and thankfully the results were good. The treatment is working, kicking my cancer’s ass and not just making me feel bad. I went through another round of Chemo on the 12th, my fifth round so far, and the side effects are stronger and taking longer to fade away between sessions. This is to be expected, as the Chemo’s effects are cumulative, but I’ve decided to be like that tree: resilient. I’m making minor adjustments to get me through the post-Chemo days, working out ways to help me ride out the pain and unpleasantness of the worst of the side effects. It’s hard to pick up a pen or brush in the first days after treatment, and I sometimes lose fine motor control. So I’m using larger and lighter pens, and I take photos of things that I want to draw instead of working on location. At home I can take my time while sketching, take breaks, experiment with looser drawing. The drawing above isn’t large or complicated, but it took me two days to complete (one for line work and one for the watercolour).
Writing at Large 