Today’s sketch includes a frame and characters drawn with a Staedtler pigment fineliner 0.1 pen, a sky drawn with a Vertex and kyo no oto Sakuranezumi ink, a sea drawn with a TWSBI ECO filled with J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor, a lighthouse sketch with a Platinum 3776 UEF nib filled with Sailor Epinard, and a beach and breaker sketch done with a Diplomat Aero and Colorverse Golden Record (plus a waterbrush).
Here’s the whole pen lineup used to create this page:
Very, very quick sketch of an exhibit of people playing beach volleyball and lounging on the the beach – all made out of plastic trash recovered from the sea. It’s quite sobering to see it all displayed like that in the Tel Aviv port. We need to be much better stewards of our oceans and planet. Drawn with a Platinum Plaisir fountain pen on a Midori MD Cotton A4 notebook.
Here is the full page spread together with the infamous Platinum Plaisir:
There’s a wild succah exhibit near the TLV mall in Tel Aviv, and it’s a lot of fun to walk around it and try and guess what everything was originally. This succah is made out of discarded bits of “junk”, you see, and the point is to make a point about recycling and sustainability. In any case it was challenging for a very quick little sketch (I’m working very fast and loose with these), and as I mentioned before, the Platinum Plaisir fountain pen I used here isn’t the most fun pen to use. The Midori MD Cotton paper deserves better.
I run practically the same route every day, and yet it never gets boring, especially since the sea, the river and the park are constantly changing. Today it was dragon boats that were out in force on the river. I’ll probably do a watercolour sketch of the scene later on. In any case, this page will be sketched with a Platinum Plaisir filled with the cartridge it came with. It was supposed to highlight the fact that you can sketch with even the cheapest of fountain pens, but I have to say that I don’t recommend the Plaisir. The nib doesn’t flip well, the ink cartridge it comes with is proprietary and the ink inside is in a depressingly dull blue, and there are better pens to be had for a little more or a lot less.
It’s time for a wash, and this time it’s just water over Colorverse Golden Record ink. The sketch was done with a Diplomat Aero fine nibbed pen, which you can see at the bottom of this post, and on A4 Midori MD Cotton paper, which is not built for washes. It buckles almost immediately.
One of my favourite places in Tel Aviv, Independence Garden (Gan HaAztmaut).
Here’s the complete page:
I like the comics like effect of it.
And here’s the pen that I used to sketch it all, the wonderful and highly recommended Diplomat Aero (in this case in orange, but it comes in a myriad of colours). The Colorverse Golden Record ink was part of a set, and I don’t recommend it.
I’m going for a page of sketches with this pen and ink combo, so here’s another small one, of two kayakers braving the stormy sea. Diplomat Aero fine nibbed fountain pen with Colorverse Golden Record on an A5 Midori MD Cotton notebook.
I had a busy day, so it was a very quick sketch this time, of a brown toy poodle sitting on her owner’s lap on the bus. She was quite the attraction, and reminded me of my old dog in the pure joy she took from everything around her.
Drawn on an A5 Midori MD Cotton notebook with a Diplomat Aero fine nibbed pen filled with Colorverse Golden Record. This ink has a tendency to dry out in pens, and it becomes darker in the pen after a day or two.
Today’s sketch was also done with a fine nibbed Karas Kustoms Velys Ignem Vertex and Kyo No Oto Sakuranezumi ink on a Midori MD Cotton A4 notebook. It’s a very quick sketch, done in less than 10 minutes, and I later on made the mistake of applying a wash on the sand, and pretty much ruined that part of the sketch.
View of the sea from next to the Tel Aviv Marina
Here are the two sketches together on a complete page (before I destroyed the bottom one).
It’s Inktober again, and after a few days of hemming and hawing I decided to join it this year. Once again I’m not following the very Halloween themed prompts, but instead just sketching with fountain pens (for the most part) and ink. I’m sketching directly on paper (no pencil underdrawing), and I’m using an A4 Midori Cotton notebook for these sketches.
Yarkon Park, view of Reading power station.
This is a 10 minute sketch, done with a Karas Kustoms Vertex Velys Ignem fountain pen with a fine nib, filled with Kyo No Oto Sakuranezumi ink.
Vertex Velys Ignem.
This is my first Karas Kustoms fountain pen, and I really enjoy using it (I’ll be posting a full review once I’ve had more time with it). I used the nib on both sides (flipping it over for extra fine dots and lines), and it is smooth and well performing.
Kyo No Oto Sakuranezumi box.
For some reason I got the ink brand name mixed up in my head and I’ve been calling it kyo no iro. Embarrassing. In any case, I bought this ink on an ink shopping spree in Choosing Keeping in London during my latest trip there. It’s a dusky purple/mauve colour that reminded me of Diamine Harmony (and costs significantly more).
Ink sample on Col-o-ring tab.
Sakuranezumi is a purple with yellowish undertones that is darker than Diamine Harmony or Diamine Seize the Night, and shades significantly less than the other two. In a fine pen it is dark enough to be acceptable in office use, and I enjoy its dusky mystique. If you do wet the ink, the yellow undertones really become prominent, so take that into account if you plan to use it for ink washes, etc.
If you are looking for a mauve ink and you want something subdued and dark, Sakuranezumi would work for you. I personally find Diamine’s offerings to be more interesting, plus they are easier to obtain and significantly cheaper. Harmony shades more, and if you are looking for yellow undertones, then Seize the Night has the sheen for you.
It’s been a busy time, what with my new job taking a lot of time and effort, my running and training taking up a good bit more, and the rest of my spare time going mostly to reading lately, I found myself creating less. That’s not great. My journalling has suffered, my drawing has suffered, my blogging has suffered. The truth is that creating is like running: I feel good during my runs and great after them, but it doesn’t make lacing up and getting out the door any less of a struggle some days. It takes more effort to sketch and blog (I’ve been utterly unable to write since my cancer diagnosis, so at the moment writing is off the table), than to curl up with a book, so I’ve been consuming more content than I’ve been creating.
That’s something that I hope will change over the next few days and weeks. I have a lot of catching up and different kinds of posts that I’ll publish here (pen reviews, sketch posts, art supply reviews, planners and Moleskines, etc). And as September is lymphoma awareness month, and childhood cancer awareness month, expect some posts related to that in the near future.
Despite the heat and humidity my running has stayed on track. This morning I woke up at 4:30 to get my long run in before the heat made things too unbearable. The weather is starting to get a bit better now, and I managed to run a little over 9 kilometres. That’s the longest run I managed to finish since my breathing issues started, and it’s a big milestone. I have a 10k race in two months and when I enrolled I wasn’t sure that I’ll be able to complete it. Today was a good indicator that I have a just may be able to do it despite having a busted lung.
Running in the dark and boats at sunrise.
I finished reading Dr Jen Gunter’s “The Vagina Bible,” which I recommend that anyone with a vagina read (it’s very informative and empowering), and Andrew Cartmel’s latest Vinyl Detective novel, “Attack and Decay”. It was a fun and fast read, and Cartmel knows how to write compelling plots and off beat characters, but his insistence on using purple language and calling attention to his protagonist’s hetro maleness is annoying at times. We get it, he’s a dude and he finds women attractive. Next up on the reading list is likely “The Sentence” which is a Tournament of Books book (and I decided not to continue with the tournament reading list this year), but as I’ve already bought it and it seems interesting, I’ve decided to give it a go.
Ducks, geese and the Vinyl Detective.
I’m using four fountain pens at the moment, and none of them are for sketching (although I write my sketch journal’s out with my Platinum 3776 UEF). All of these are new pens, inked for the first time. The Diplomat Aero is an excellent pen at a great price point with a very unique and elegant streamlined design. The Colorverse Golden Record, on the other hand, is a disappointing ink. This is the second time that I’m using it, and it darkens considerably when left in the pen, becoming more brownish than golden orange. The Platinum Plaisir 03 is a pretty decent pen for anyone first venturing into fountain pens. It’s a cartridge pen, and I’m not a fan of the Platinum blue it came with, but I’m not going to invest in trying to find other ink options for it. The TWSBI ECO is an excellent pen, particularly for the price point, and J. Herbin Emerald de Chivor is a really fun, utterly impractical ink. This ECO is the jade one, and it doesn’t glow in the dark, despite its looks. The Platinum 3776 UEF is one of the best pens that I’ve bought in a long time, because of the nib. Yes, it’s scratchy, no I don’t mind. It doesn’t feel different than my beloved, finicky Pilot Hi-Tech-C and I get more personality from its fine lines than I get with something like a fineliner. Sailor Epinard (this is from a bottle of the discontinued ink, which is now no longer discontinued), is a good, dark and muted green that has a good amount of personality.
Pens in rotation.
Have a great week, and take care of yourselves in these hectic times.
Writing at Large 