A blog about writing, sketching, running and other things
I had a tough week, hence the delay in some posts. I did go to the weekly central protest tonight, despite the terrorist attack earlier this evening in Tel Aviv.
Sketched this very quickly in the dark. Them took a photo of it in the dark, and decided that it captures the moment well.
Have a great week, and if you live in a democracy, don’t take it for granted.
I went “shopping” in my stationery and art supply stash again, and this time used a Hahnemule Cappuccino sketchbook, a uni-ball sign pen, a Faber Castell PITT artist brush pen in light green (171), a Tombow ABT water based dual brush pen (I only used the brush side not the felt tip pen side) in light grey (cool grey 3 – N75), and a Caran d’Ache + Alfredo Haberli Fixpencil with a blue 2mm lead.
I used them all to draw the protest scene from this Saturday, using a photo I took during the protests. It was intensely hot and humid, and I went to the protests right after running a Dungeon World game at a small local tabletop roleplaying convention. With no art supplies on me, the best I could do was try and capture the scene to sketch later. When I was pulling things out to try out with this sketch, I decided to veer away from my comfort zone: I used tinted paper, a sign pen, mixed media, and an unusual colour. I like the result – for a quick sketch it captures the energy of the moment well.
I like the Hahnemule Cappuccino sketchbook. The paper is smooth but has a touch of grain to it that makes it work for pencils as well. It’s way too thin for wet media, but works great for brush pens, pencils, markers, etc.
My main sketching tool was the Uni Sign Pen. This is the first time I’ve used a sign pen for “serious” sketching, as I normally only use them for illustrations that I gift to friends’ kids. I like it – it has relatively little line variation, but on the other hand offers more control, and a good bold line. If you are dipping your toes into brush pens for sketching for the first time, this might be a good place to start to get a feel for the kind of thick lines these kinds of pens create.
The Faber-Castell PITT brush pen is a classic, one that I’ve used many times before in sketches. I’d love to say that they don’t disappoint, but like most soft and medium soft brush pens, the tip doesn’t last for long. They do come in lots of great colours and if you cap them they last much more than many other markers and brush pens in the market. They’re also waterproof, which is a bonus if you’re mixing them with wet media.
The Tombow dual brush pen is completely new to me, and I liked it enough to want to add it to my current sketching setup. It works well for quick shading (and shading and colour make sketches pop).
The Caran d’Ache + Alfredo Haberli Fixpencil… This is something that I want to properly review sometime in the future, so it’s been waiting on my desk for a while. For now I’ll just say that it did the job, although I have other pens and pencils that would have done the job better.
I also sketched our friend Joe during our weekly Zoom meeting, also on the Hahnemule Cappuccino and using the Uni Sign Pen. This was a very quick sketch, done it 2-3 minutes, and the sign pen does well with expressive lines.
Now go rummage in your stationery/art supply stash and find something new to play with. It’s guaranteed to make you smile.
10 minute sketch using a Staedtler 0.8 fineliner, Faber Castell Pitt brush pens and a pocket watercolour Moleskine notebook.
I went to a very special Urban Sketchers sketchwalk and drink and draw today. The event celebrated the end of a special sketch swap between a group of sketchers in Barcelona and in Tel Aviv, and there were sketchers there from all over the world (Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, India, etc). We met at Gan Meir in central Tel Aviv for a sketchwalk followed by a drink and draw at the top of Libling house. It was hot, it was humid, and I needed a break by the time I got to the garden, so I went to the nearby Stephan Austrian Bakery for a cold coffee and a Sachertorte, a rare but much needed treat.
A lot of people came in to pick up an ice cream cone, including this little fellow:
I then went back to the garden and started sketching the waterlily pool:
There was a group of ping pong players nearby, and I got hit by balls several times. I was also visited by several curious children. It’s all part of the Urban Sketching charm.
I then saw a group of kids with a metal detector, searching for treasure in the sand, so I sketched them quickly:
This was our sketchbook throw down, and I loved seeing all the different styles and sketch subjects together,
We then went to Leibling House nearby, and there saw some of the sketch swap participants’ work. We had a party on the roof, and I got to talk to sketchers from all over the world, and see so many different sketching styles.
I had to leave early, but I did get to check out Leibling House and see their Frankfurt Kitchen, which is pretty amazing:
What struck me most is how the sketchers from abroad saw and sketched the same tired old local monuments and tourist attractions. Through their work I got to see them with new eyes, and it made me want to visit them and try to sketch them myself. I also got to see Leibling House for the first time, and I plan on returning to it in the future, as it’s a wonderful museum and exhibition space.
Back to the weekly pro democracy demonstration. Used some new art supplies that I’ll review later. Tons of energy and wind tonight.
I went on a sketchwalk with our local Urban Sketchers chapter to Dizengoff Square, a central square in Tel Aviv that has been a gathering place since before there was a state of Israel. It was hot for the season, and the place was jumping with colour and activity.
This was sketched on a Moleskine Watercolour A5 portrait sketchbook, with Staedtler fineliners and Schmincke and Daniel Smith watercolours. The white was added with a Uniball Signo Broad UM-153 gel pen. You can see some process photos below.
I have a complicated relationship with the Tel Aviv Marathon. It’s the largest local race, with 5k, 10k, half-marathon and marathon courses (Jerusalem’s Marathon doesn’t come close in the number of runners because hills. Runners don’t like them, in case you didn’t know). But it’s my least favourite local race, and there’s always something going on around it to make me dislike it more (bad organizing, heat wave, holding the race despite there being a global pandemic, etc).
I was enrolled to run the 10k at the Tel Aviv Marathon in late February 2020, a few days before the lockdowns started. Everybody already had an idea of what Covid looked like, it was already a pandemic, and the number of sick people was rising daily. We were expecting the race to be cancelled, but the night before the race it was clear that the organizers planned to cram people into very dense corals, and just hope they didn’t get an outbreak. Anything but return people’s fees. My friend and I had a conversation that night, and we both decided not to run. The risk wasn’t worth it.
In late February 2021 there was no physical race – it was a digital (i.e. virtual) one instead. In late February 2022 the marathon returned in full force, but I was two months after completing my chemotherapy, and in no condition to run even the 5k course. I was running 3ks, which was great considering what my body had been through and the fact that I hadn’t been able to run for almost a year, and I had lost all my muscle mass and was working with a restricted lung capacity. I remember following this race on their site and on social media and feeling bereft, even though it was never my favourite race. I had no idea at the time that I’d be able to participate in the Women’s Race 4k three months later. For various good reasons I wasn’t sure I’d be able to race again.
Last Friday I was set to run the 10k course in the Tel Aviv Marathon. Then on Monday I fell and hurt my knee on the way to work (the sidewalks and streets near my office are dreadfully maintained, and rushing across them is now no longer something I plan on doing). I took care of it as best I could, rested it as much as I could and wondered whether I could race on Friday, and if I set out could I complete the course?
I woke up early, got race ready, took the train to the starting area, and walked to the coral. There were a lot of people there, and I don’t do well with crowds these days. I stood on the side, and once the race started, waited for most of the people to walk by (no running in those conditions – we were packed like sardines), so that I could start running too. About 5 minutes went by, I judged things to be safer and started making my way to the starting line when about 5 meters from the line they stopped us and had us wait for 10 minutes, as more and more people piled behind, and the crowds got thicker and thicker. Ostensibly this was so people could start in “waves” and “the route will clear up”. In reality, they had the original coral start late, and this was just a way to catch up by having half of the A coral start with about half of the B coral. The only way for me to power through was to look straight up at the sky for 10 minutes. My neck is still sore.
But then we were finally allowed to run, and the magic of races kicked in. I can’t describe the adrenaline, the joy, the pure sense of life that racing gives me. It made everything disappear. I high-fived the kids that were cheering us on. I appreciate just how many runners (including myself) ran with pro-democracy stickers and flags. I enjoyed seeing the sheer variety of runners around me, and the feeling of belonging into a flowing river of runners moving constantly towards the finish line.
It wasn’t my best time, but I did much better than I thought I could. My knee held up. I narrowly avoided a panic attack at the starting line, but I avoided it, which is the point. I saw a lot of people running for excellent causes, and just running for themselves. There was the kindness of races – people rushing to care for the marathon runner that collapsed in the heat, treating him until the medics (very quickly) arrived; people cheering others along, complimenting each other freely; kids cheering as loudly and boisterously as they could.
Try to find kindness around you this week, try to find joy.
Quick watercolour I drew yesterday. Schmincke cobalt blue is super granulating.
Process photos:
I’ve had a cold this week, which is to show just how well masks and isolation work as it’s the first cold I’ve had in years. I haven’t missed it.
After a rainy week and then a sick week, my running has been suffering and the first race of the year is in two week’s time! I went back to running today, and planned to ease in with a 3k run that ended up being a 5.5k fast run because I was enjoying myself so much. It’s cold outside, but it isn’t raining, and that makes it perfect running weather.
After three days of being cooped inside, I went outside to draw yesterday, and I tried a new kind of composition, which I kind of like:
I finished reading “A Gentleman in Moscow,” and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m focusing on finishing “Erebus” by Michael Palin next before working my way through my kindle backlog and the stack of physical books that I want to read this year.
I’ve written my Lamy Studio Terracotta limited edition filled with Diamine Yule Log dry, and I’m now using a Lamy Safari Charcoal with Diamine Deck the Halls and a Lamy AL Star Charged Green with Diamine Alpine mostly, as they’re the next in line, with a couple of Kaweco sports, to be written dry. I’ve currently got 26(!) pens inked up, and it looks like I’ll be dumping out ink from a few of them, for the sake of my sanity. We’ll see how things go next week.
I’ve been my fountain pens mostly for journalling, on a Stalogy 365 notebook that I’ve started using. Every time my journalling gets into a rut, I switch notebook formats and that generally works to get me journalling again. The Stalogy is smaller than the Moleskine’s that I generally prefer to journal in, but it has fountain pen friendly paper, which is giving me the chance to use my pens. This is not to say that I don’t use fountain pens with my Moleskines (I do. I don’t care that they show through and sometimes bleed, as I have more than enough of them to use just one side of the paper), but that it’s nice to better see the properties of the inks that I use. Drying times aren’t great, and the cover is floppy, which means that I probably won’t be using this format long term. For now it works, as I’ve been journalling regularly, and I can use the Stalogy without looking at the various hour and date notations on the page. They are very feint, and I’ve turned the notebook upside down, so they are completely irrelevant to me.
I’ve been doing a lot of NTC workouts lately, and they’re tough but a lot of fun. If you’re looking for a way to work out more, using the NTC app is a great option. They have a large variety of workouts, workouts that are as long or as short as you need them to be, and workouts that are built for small places and little or no equipment (mostly you’ll just need a mat). It’s all completely free of charge, and has been that way for years. I’ve been using them for over a decade, and the quality and variety has just gone up with time. Even 5-10 minutes of exercise a day is better than nothing, and this is an easy and fun way to get into training.
Have a great and healthy week!
Writing at Large 