Category: Weekly Update

Weekly Update: 10K Race, Field Notes Sketchbook and Poetry Anthology

Another busy week at work coupled with a packed weekend means that this update will be bullet-point style:

  • I ran my first race of the year, a 10K in what turned out to be surprisingly warm weather. I’ve been using the Nike Running Club App’s 10k race plan, for both this race and the one I ran in Disney World last October and it’s proven to be fantastic. I wish I could say the same about the app, which has lately had annoying audio issues that have made it downright unusable at times.
  • In preparation for next week’s One Week 100 People challenge I’ve been using a Field Notes Sketchbook, and I’ve grown to appreciate its portability. It’s not suited for wet media, but for pen, ink and pencil it works well. All the sketch photos here were done on a Field Notes Sketchbook, and I’ll be reviewing it sometime in the future.
  • I’m down to only five inked fountain pens, and I’ll likely write one or two of them dry next week. I’ll be updating my pen rotation sometime late next week, possibly looking to add some more spring-time ink colours to the darker inks I currently have in use.
  • I’ve finished reading Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, bringing my February book count to three. The book was just the sort of cozy, light read that I needed at the time, and I enjoyed it enough to immediately buy the sequel (which is actually a prequel) Bookshops and Bonedust.
  • I spent an annoyingly long time downloading all of my kindle books to my laptop before Amazon locked that option out. I’ve also moved to using Kobo to buy eBooks. I will admit that it’s not as convenient as buying ebooks from Amazon, but I’m angry enough at them for the change to put in the extra effort required. I bought Bookshops and Bonedust on Kobo and then used the Amazon “Send to Kindle” website to transfer my purchase (it was easy because Travis Baldree, bless him, demanded that the book be DRM free). I also bought another book (a bit on that in the next bullet) that had DRM applied, so I had to do some Calibre work to strip it of DRM before sending it to my Kindle. Next time the whole process should take only a minute or two extra beyond the usual Kindle book purchasing process, and again, for me it’s worth it.
  • After listening to Oxford poetry professor Tara Stubbs’s wonderful Demystifying Poetry podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify) I bought my first poetry book in years, the anthology “Staying Alive”. Even if you’re not a poetry lover, give the podcast a listen. It’s well worth your time.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update: Ink Swaps and Quick Sketches

Earlier this week I went to a standup gig – a NY comedian was trying out new material, and it was an interesting (and funny) experience to see him work. Before the show I had about 5 minutes to sketch the people in a nearby cafe, so I sketched this couple using a Staedtler 0.5 Pigment Liner.

In terms of fountain pens the Parker Vacumatic is out of rotation, though I may give Diamine Writer’s Blood a try in another pen soon enough. I decided that I want to have the nib tuned on it, in terms of flow, though I don’t know who I’ll be able to find to do the tuning for me.

I also dumped out the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama Budo out of my Parker 51 as I couldn’t get it to not bleed and feather on practically any paper. I cleaned out the pen and refilled it with Waterman (Tender) Purple ink and it’s been wonderful to use since. Waterman inks are not only fantastically well behaved, beautiful, cheap and very, very easy to clean out of pens, they’re also dry inks. As Parker 51 generally have a generous ink flow, and this one is no different, a dry ink serves particularly well with this pen.

I’ve been reading Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (the British novelist, not the famous actress) and it’s a wonderful study of character, age and aging.

Next week is the Tel Aviv marathon, which is sold out for the very first time. There were no big local running events last year, and there’s clearly a hunger for them.

This week has been crushing from both a personal and a national perspective. I’ve taken solace in friends and in reading, but there have been times where it’s been a struggle. It’s at times like this when I need to remind myself to stop, take a breath, allow myself to feel what I need to feel, and only then pick myself up and move on.

Be kind to yourself and others, and have a great week.

Weekly Update: Model Sketches Take 2

It’s nice to have new pens and inks in rotation. I’m enjoying Diamine’s Writer’s Blood more than I expected, Diamine Autumn Oak is fantastic with a Waterman superflex nib, and Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo is becoming one of my favourite inks.

Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes are hosting the OneWeek100People challenge again this year, and I intend to participate again. The challenge starts on the 3rd of March and officially lasts 5 days. I normally sketch from photos, but this time I want to see if I can do the entire challenge from observation only. It may take me more than 5 days, but I’m OK with that. Are you planning on joining the challenge?

I went to the local art museum again this week, to sketch models in the museum. This was the last time this event was run, and the place was packed with sketchers. I didn’t have the best of locations, but I made the most of it. I sketched with Faber Castell 9000 2B and 3B pencils mostly, and added a touch of colour with Faber Castell Polychromos. The ink sketches were done with a Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.5. The sketchbook I used was once again the French Pascale Éditions. The models did fewer 20 minute poses and more 10 minute ones, which meant scrambling a lot. I wanted to visit the museum after the event, but I was so tired from 3 hours of non-stop sketching that I just went home.

Harman Photo just came out with a brand new colour film, Harman Red. It’s a red-scale film, and I’m curious enough to try and buy a roll or two and test them out. I love the wild, wild results I got with Harman Phoenix and the Harman Red is basically Phoenix pushed even more into red-scale.

Here are the sketches from today, and I hope that you have a great week!

10 minute pose.
10 minute pose.
10 minute pose.
10 minute pose – the hardest pose to draw because of the angle of the head. Had a false start on this one, so had only about 8 minutes for this.
10 minute pose – Staedtler 0.5 pigment liner
10 minute pose
10 minute pose
10 minute pose
The three models. The pose started with just the two top models, and then the third one joined, and it was a 10 minute pose.
A challenging composition, 20 minute pose
10 minute pose. I like the composition on this one – I placed her on the side of the page to give her room for thought.
Final pose, 20 minutes

Weekly Update: Model Sketches

It’s been a hectic week as my team at work is basically crumbling: our new senior member is leaving after just two months, the team lead is leaving after a bit more than a year, and the other team member is on holiday until the end of the month. That just leaves me with two trainees to hold the fort for a while, and it’s far from ideal. As I’m also working my way through an intense certification course, posts on this blog have taken (and will likely continue to take) a bit of a hit.

Reading

I’ve finished reading Looking for a Ship by John McPhee and I’ve reviewed it here. It’s a fascinating narrative of a now extinct world, that of the American Merchant Marine. I’ve now started reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks as well as Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

Stationery

My Field Notes order has arrived, as has the 2024 Hobonichi Techo (yes, 2024) that I bought with a Black Friday discount. The Hobonichi will be used to supplement my 2014 Hobonichi when it comes to testing out inks. The 2024 Techo has’s got paper that is close enough to original Tomoe River Paper that’s in my 2014 Techo, though from my understanding the 2025 Hobonuchi’s have worse paper than the 2024 ones, so take that into account if you’re considering buying one. I have posts planned for both purchases, and hopefully I’ll get the time to write them.

Model Sketching

I went to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art today for a special sketching event that they organized: three models dressed in clothing that reflected some of the artwork in the collection, posing for sketches for 3 hours. These were mostly 10 minute sketches, with the last two poses being 20 minute ones. The last pose was a rare treat – a group pose, which is something you don’t get to sketch a lot.

In general when sketching models, whether clothed or not, you have one model that poses. Here there were three, and they switched places, so wherever you sat you got to sketch all three (and you could always sketch a model that was a bit further than the one right in front of you). The museum was busy, and there were children’s plays being shown in the auditorium, and so a lot of kids were around us, sketching on bits of paper with coloured pencils, with parents and grandparents cooing with delight and hovering around. It was wonderful to see how joyously kids took to sketching, whether it was the ladies in the dresses before them, or just anything that came into their imagination.

Here are the sketches I made throughout the event. The sketchbook I used was by French maker Pascale Éditions (it was lovely), and I used a Faber Castell 9000 2B pencil, a Faber Castell 4B Graphite Aquarelle pencil, various Faber Castel Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils, a Tombow brush pen, and a 0.5 Staedtler Pigment Liner (this was my most used sketching tool).

First sketch. Warming up, so trying to keep it as loose as possible.
20 minute sketch, so I had time for some shading.
The only sketch where I wet the paper slightly with a waterbrush before sketching
20 minute final group pose
Potato quality photo of the three models

Have a great and creative week!

Weekly Update: Ink and Prickly Pears

I haven’t done a watercolour sketch in a while, so I broke out the trusty Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook, my Staedtler Pigment Liners (0.3 and 0.5) and my Schmincke and Daniel Smith watercolours and made this quick sketch:

Prickly pear watercolour sketch

It was fun and it took me less time than I thought, so I should do it more often.

This was a big ink week, as I wrote many of my Inkvent fountain pens dry: Wishing Tree, Snow Globe, Winterberry, Salted Caramel, Pine Needle, Nutmeg, and Wilted Rose. I also dumped Sleigh Ride as I found the ink colour depressing. This leaves me with 9 Inkvent inks still inked in my pens, with most of them half or quarter full. I doubt that I’ll be able to write them all dry by the end of the month, but hopefully I’ll get as close to that as possible. In any case I’ll reassess in the beginning of February if I want to keep using my Diamine Inkvent inks or if I’ll just dump out and clean up whatever I still have inked at the time and start fresh.

I finished reading “The New York Trilogy” and it’s a very Paul Auster book. Next week I’ll start on “The Last Kashmiri Rose” by Barbara Cleverly and finish “The Comfort Crisis” by Michael Easter.

Have a great week full of pens, books and good news.

Weekly Update: Motorcycle Sketch

Running

I’m a week away from getting back to a 10k long run, and the running weather has been pretty perfect so far. I ran a 30 minute hilly recovery run today and for the first time ever I ran it without headphones. I normally run with earbuds and listen to podcasts or music, except during races where I leave my earbuds at home for safety reasons (and to get the full race experience). It was relatively early and the trail I was running through was deserted, so it was quite the experience listening just to birds and the sound of my feet and my breath. This is definitely something that I plan on adding to my running routine.

Reading

I’m two thirds into “The New York Trilogy” by Paul Auster and I’m dreading starting the 3rd and final story. The writing is excellent, but it’s like reading through version after version of Bartleby the Scrivener – not something that you particularly want to do. I’ve come so far that I will finish the book at this point, but after reading several Auster books it’s clear to me that while he’s a very good writer, his books are not for me.

Meanwhile I’ve started on “The Comfort Crisis” by Michael Easter, and though it is clear that it suffers from many of the same problems that books of this kind suffer from (cherry picking or hand waving “research” over complex and nuanced topics), there are some interesting ideas within.

Fountain Pens

I’ve decided to sketch more with my Inkvent ink filled fountain pens to try and run them dry more quickly, so here’s a motorcycle sketch done with a Levenger True Writer Cappuccino with a fine nib and Diamine Nutmeg.

Motorcycle Sketch on Midori MD Cotton paper

Have a nice and peaceful week.

Weekly Update: Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

This week and next week are pretty busy, so this update will be short and in bullet points:

  • I wrote three Inkvent fountain pens dry, leaving me with 17 (!) pens to go. I’m prioritizing the pens based on how damaging the ink can potentially be, so I’ve written the Star Bright inks dry (Chilly Nights and Noble Fir) and I’m working my way through the shimmer inks and chameleon inks next.
  • I spent a few minutes every day for the past 2-3 days unsubscribing from various email lists, store newsletters and SMS message lists. The joy of a less cluttered inbox and less noise on my phone is fantastic, and it took less time and effort than I thought.
  • I’m still reviewing 2024. It’s going to take a while because I have such a busy start of the year.
  • Goodreads have really started to gamify and commercialize their site more, and so I’m using it less. I know there are alternatives out there but I just don’t have time to actively seek them out at the moment – let me know in the comments if you have any recommendations.
  • I don’t do resolutions (or yearly themes, etc. I do quarterly plans with quantifiable goals), but my stationery goals for 2025 are to buy nothing (or as close to nothing as possible) and to use what I have instead. I have too much stuff and it’s time I used it.
  • I checked out the Tournament of Books shortlist and decided yet again not to participate. A few years ago the list had interesting and exciting contemporary fiction, but now there are only a slack handful of shortlisted books that seem worth reading, and I’ve heard of many of them from other places already. It’s a bit of a shame as I had a lot of fun following along when I did.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update: Impressionism, Cal Newport and Inkvent End

Inkvent

I’m finally done with reviewing the Diamine Inkvent 2024 Black Edition calendar and it’s been exhausting. I haven’t been able to get a proper buffer for the even this year, which meant that I was chasing every post every day.

On the plus side, it was nice to dust off 25 bears and sketch them. My sketching and my blogging had been in a rut recently and this event kickstarted them, so I am grateful for that. I also got some lovely comments from people, which is always wonderful to read.

Wild sunset today

Cal Newport

The latest episode of Cal Newport’s Deep Questions podcast was excellent, and in the final segment Cal discussed his new approach to making a quarterly plan. It’s worth listening to, but basically his idea of pillars and foundations and focusing on a certain pillar at a time really resonated with me. My next quarter will be focused on craft as a pillar, as I want to earn a professional certification and work towards a deeper understanding and more hands on experience with certain more obscure aspects of my job.

Reading

I finished reading the HBR “Dealing with Difficult People” book, and started reading Paul Auster’s “The New York Trilogy”. So far it’s a very Paul Auster book, for good and for bad.

Impressionism

I went to see an Impressionist exhibition, celebrating 150 years to the movement, at the local art museum. The exhibition itself was nice enough, but a bit thin in terms of the artwork on display. There was also a nice print exhibition, and an excellent retrospective exhibition dedicated to Moi Ver. It was wonderful seeing a master photographer at work, and his design work is also worth seeing.

Ci-Contre Moi Ver
Ci-Contre Moi Ver

I went to the museum store later and went a little wild, purchasing a handmade ceramic cup made by a local artist, three postcards (which I wrote on and will give away), and a Leuchtturm1917 A5 dotted notebook that I didn’t need but I wanted anyway. I bought a Leuchtturm notebook the last time I was in that store, and it’s now my work daily driver notebook, so I assume I’ll find use for this notebook soon enough. The paper isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for me for daily fountain pen use.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update: 3 year chemo-versary

It’s been three years today since I finished my chemotherapy and have been in remission. I spent the day celebrating with my family, I’ll have another celebration next week, and I’m about to watch Mischief Movie Night In to finish a very nice day indeed.

Having dealt with cancer at a relatively young age sets certain priorities very straight in life. Health, family, friends are above all. I start my journaling every day with a 4-5 things that I’m grateful for. I’m constantly aware that everything in life is fleeting, everything can be taken away from you at any time, so it’s really important to take the time and appreciate everything that you have, even if it’s not always everything that you’ve wanted.

Teddy bears getting ready to be photographed for Inkvent

Reading

I have finished two books this week, Cal Newport’s “How to Become a Straight A Student” and Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital”. Newport’s book was excellent and I plan on using the advice within it to help me prepare for a big certification exam that I’m taking this year. Harvey’s “Orbital” won this year’s Booker prize, which is why I read it, and it’s a complete waste of time. It’s around 140 pages of bloated, purple description, with no plot, no interesting or fleshed out characters, and nothing but platitudes to say about humanity, humankind or the planet. I have no idea why it won, and it was so bad that it completely put me off of trying to read Booker award winning books.

Inkvent

I’ve managed to build a small buffer, which will come in useful as I have to write this year’s Inkvent summary post and I’m still not sure how I’ll tackle it. This year’s calendar isn’t like the ones previous, and so I will need a fresh approach to this summary post this time.

Planning

I’m gearing up to switch planning notebooks after next week, and to start a new quarter. My plan for next quarter is largely ready, and is a little different this time. I’ve pared things down, and I might even streamline them more. I have a week to hammer out the final details, and I’ll likely be dedicating a post to the process in the end.

Have a great week and remember to count your blessings.

Weekly Update: Sketching, Inkvent BTS and Fountain Pen Purchases

I went to a demonstration across the street from the American Embassy. The families of the hostages asked Jake Sullivan to pressure our current government to sign an agreement to release the hostages and end the fighting in Gaza. There was significant police presence and I was a bit worried to get too close to the centre of the action as they seemed jumpy, but I did sketch the demonstrators (Lamy fountain pen and Diamine Marley ink on a Cass Art sketchbook).

Sketch of the demonstration

I bought a Model 03 modified colour prototype from the Franklin-Christoph online pen show. This brings up the total number of fountain pens I purchased this year to three – which is one of the lowest it’s been since I started using fountain pens. The other two pens are the Fountain EDC from Big iDesign, which I got through kickstarter, and a Leonardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica Universe. I’ve been buying fewer and fewer fountain pens over the years, and I expect next year won’t change that trend. The reason is twofold: all the vintage dealers I used to buy from have retired or died, and I already have enough modern pens to satisfy all of my needs and curiosities.

Inkvent has been a lot of work, and I haven’t been able to get much of a buffer going on. I basically write each review on the day it’s published, with the writing samples and the sketch being done a day or two beforehand at most. It’s so time consuming that I haven’t been able to find enough time to create a posting buffer this year.

It’s the middle of December and I’ve started planning for the next “13 week year” or quarter, and in this case also moving into a new notebook. I’ll probably write a separate post about setting up my new planning notebook and migrating from my old one, but for now I’ll say that starting a notebook with a few lists is a great way to get over the “first blank page” fright.

Have a great and peaceful week!