Tag: tel aviv

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

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!

Protest sketch

Powerful speeches and half a million people at the main protest to return the hostages and for a better leadership this evening.

Bring them home now.

Sketched on location and watercolour added later as it was too dark to see colours properly.

Sketching with Iron Gall Fountain Pen Ink: Rohrer and Kilngner Ebony

I have recently purchased the Rohrer and Klingner limited edition Ebony iron gall ink, and I’ve filled one of my Lamy Safaris with it. While iron gall fountain pen ink can be corrosive to pens, and it does change colour over time, it does have a pretty nifty trait: it’s waterproof when dry.

So I made this quick sketch with my Lamy Safari extra fine nibbed fountain pen on a Cass Art recycled paper sketchbook:

And then I added some watercolour to the sketches (note that although this isn’t watercolour paper, the paper in this sketchbook does take light watercolour washes):

As expected, it worked pretty well. Note two things about the combination of iron gall ink and watercolour:

1. The ink must be dry before applying the watercolour.

2. As the water causes the paper fibers to expand, your ink lines may “spread” or display soft edges if you apply watercolour over them. You can see this in both sketches. Different paper will lead to different results, of course.

This was a fun little experiment, and a great way to test out this ink a bit more.

Full sketching kit.

Have you ever used iron gall ink with watercolour in your sketches?

Quick sketch: New sculpture

Am I starting a new sketch journaling habit? Too early to tell. Meanwhile, I’m having fun teaching myself to sketch fast and loose.

Cheap Cass Art sketchbook, Uniball Pin 0.8 and watercolours
The original

Quick sketch: Guided architecture walk

Used a Uniball pin 0.8 fineliner and three Stabilo Boss highlighters in their new colour range on a Cass Art recycled paper sketchbook.

Yes the paper is ivory and the highlighters are weird.

Postcards

When my brother and I visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando we bought a pack of postcards and some postage at Hogsmeade and posted some postcards home. They have a little “Owl Post” booth where you can get your postcard stamped with an owl post stamp, and it’s a charming experience. We ended up with a few postcards left over, so we posted them from our Disney hotel. A few weeks after we got home the postcards arrived and made out day.

I was just at a Shalom Sebba exhibition at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art and after my visit I went to the museum store and bought some postcards there. Later that evening I spent some time writing postcards for my family, with little sketches inspired by Sebba’s work:

I had no idea where I would post them, as most of the post boxes in my area have been removed, but I wanted to at least try to post them before my dad’s surgery this week. With today’s postal service sending them would be a bit like tossing a message in a bottle into the sea and hoping it would eventually arrive at its destination. Yet there’s something about not just the wonderful experience of receiving snail mail which I wanted to give to my family, but something particular about postcards that made me want make the effort to post these cards that I could more easily hand deliver myself.

More than letter postcards evoke some things to me – a break from routine, a holiday, exotic places, better days. There’s something creative about the selection you make, and they make me want to sketch in them, write in their margins, be creative in the tiny space I’m given to work with. The limited space, zero privacy and the need to withstand the elements at least somewhat makes them a creative challenge we rarely encounter in days where everyone is an instant message away.

Yet that’s what made them appeal to me, because more than anything postcards speak of hope, and these days I need all the hope I can get.