A blog about writing, sketching, running and other things
There’s a waterlily pool near where I work, and it would be so easy to paint them with watercolours and so difficult to sketch them in pen and ink, so of course I sketched them in pen and ink. It is inktober after all.
Platinum 3776 UEF, Sailor Epinard, A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.
This is a quick sketch of our family friend Joe during our weekly zoom meeting with him. Joe is one of the smartest, funniest and kindest people I know, he’s 97 years old, and he’s been a family friend since I can remember myself.
Do you have a similar inspiration in your life?
This was sketched using a Platinum Plaisir fountain pen on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.
A friend was at a local vintage Indian motorcycle meeting and she took a photo of a 1948 Indian chief, so this is today’s sketch, directly in pen and ink. 3776 Plantinum UEF fountain pen with Sailor Epinard ink on an A4 Midori MD Cotton notebook.
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.
Day five of the One Week 100 People challenge, the final day of the challenge. I made it, using only pen and ink, and focusing on portraits the whole way through! It was tough but rewarding, and if I’d change one thing about it is get a better ink than Platinum Carbon. It kept drying up on me, and for the last four drawings I switched to a Lamy Safari fine with Noodler’s Black. That also wasn’t ideal, but it was better than the Platinum. I really want to test out the De Atramentis Document inks, but with shipping rates and reliability being what they are I’m stuck with three equally poor alternatives: Noodler’s Black, Platinum Carbon Ink and Rohrer and Klingner SketchINK. They all dry up in the nib and are hard starters, and the best of the bunch in terms of flow (Noodler’s) is the least waterproof of them all.
Anyway, I really recommend the One Week 100 People Challenge to anyone who wants to improve their people drawing skills, and I plan on doing it again next year.
Day two of the One Week 100 People challenge and today was more challenging than yesterday, mainly because I started late and had trouble finding decent photographs. Photographers apparently love photographing blurry people, masked people, people with their backs to them, other photographers (while they are taking photographs and their face is half covered by the camera), or people from a large distance. Some of them also love photoshopping their subjects to death, so I’m now able to find a half decent subject only every five or six photographs. Thankfully the pool is huge and varied, with people in all ages and from all over the world, so while things are slowing down a bit, I’m still grateful for the the opportunity to enjoy the work published in this wonderful group. Even if I can’t use all of the photos there, I am thoroughly enjoying perusing through all of them.
Writing at Large 