Tag Archives: drawing

Drawing-a-Day: Smoking Kills

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Ink mix0064

"Smoking Kills" measures A5 or 5.75×7.5 inches. I did a quick sketch with pencil and then used a couple of fountain pens filled with Noodler's Black, Nikita and Eternal Brown.

Cost is $25 USD, shipping to CONUS included.

 

A little story about this image. I don't smoke. Every piece of trash that is tossed onto my street blows into my yard. I have found parliment, kool and various other cigarette packages in my yard, along with a plethora of butts. I dutifully clean this shit up on my days off from work. I hate smoking. My grandfather died of lung cancer which was directly linked to his 3 pack a day smoking habit. I look at my having to clean up cigarette butts as some sort of evil eff you from the universe.

I also have to clean up styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cups, paper bags from McDonalds and Dunks, assorted lids from take away places. My neighbor's recycling tends to blow out of their recycling bins as they aren't secured. This all ends up in my yard in some weird wind vortex of recycling hell.

Drawing-a-Day: I Need that Color!

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Ink mix0056

This is the 4-1-11 drawing titled “I Need that Color!” It measures A5 or 5.75×7.5 inches. I did a quick sketch with pencil and then used a Lamy Safari with a B nib filled with Noodler’s Black ink for the paint tubes and added the shading with a TWSBI M Nib and Private Reserve Electric DC Blue ink.

Cost is $25 USD, shipping to CONUS included.

 

Drawing-a-Day: Introduction

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I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a drawing/ painting-a-day blog for a while now. I’m still debating doing it for a year. Traci Bunkers (click her name for a great blog link) tweeted that I should try it for 30 days. And well, duh! I’ve been reading her blog with her 30 day experiments for awhile now and think that she’s right 30 days is a good start for my commitment phobia to gravitate.

So for the next 30 days you’ll find a post of a drawing done the night before. I think I’ll working my Graf It pad and my Rhodia Dot Pad, both are A5 or 5.75×7.5 inches in size, acid free and archival. I’ll be working in pen and ink, perhaps with spot watercolor. There will be a paypal button so you can purchase the original work, pricing on these will be $25 shipped via USPS to CONUS in a clear archival baggie with a certificate of authenticity. Should it go well I might extend the project.

Drawing-a-day posts will go up on here at noon EST and will feature work from the day before.

 

Review: B&N Bargan Bin Piccadily Sketchbook

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This weekend I picked up a bargain priced sketchbook at B&N for about $5. I thought it was a no name brand that B&N often sell. When I got it home I realized it’s a Piccadilly branded journal.

The list price on this sketchbook is $12.99; I got it for $4.99. Less than half price. I noticed that B&N didn’t have ANY of these on the regular shelf. So I’m thinking these are only ordered for the cheapie racks. Which is fine, at $5 this isn’t a bad deal but for $12.99 not worth the money.

I tested this with a variety of inks in a variety of pens. I did a little sketching to see how the paper would respond and I did my usual of an ink and water wash.

Anything with a larger than a fine tip feathered and bled through the paper. There was a TON of feathering especially in my medium tipped and wet writing Pelikano. My extra fine and fine pointed pens did okay, regardless of the ink. I tested both sides of the paper and there is no right/wrong side, the sides have the same finish throughout the journal. The paper is very smooth. I wouldn’t want to use a pencil on this paper as it’s just too smooth and pencil would smudge all over the place.

Ink mix0019
As for water on this paper, it could be done but it’s not recommended, a very light wash caused major cockling (wrinkles) that never eased out of the paper. I also noticed that really heavy application of ink caused the same issues. Anywhere I used a heavy layer of ink it not only bled through the paper but also to the page underneath. Anywhere there was heavy ink use the fibers of the paper lifted and were picked up by the nib of the pen.

Ink mix0018 The Pros:

  • Good value at $5
  • Paper is smooth
  • Bright white paper
  • Great sturdy hard cover
  • Sturdy double coil binding

Cons:

  • Feathering with any ink
  • Bleedthrough
  • Fiber lifting
  • No water due to cockling
  • EF and F nibs or pencil only

Overall I’d say this is a good sketchbook for someone looking for something cheap that they can do a lot of throwaway sketches in or just to take some notes. This little journal probably wouldn’t stand up to a lot of the abuse that art journalers would toss at it. Even if you gesso’ed the pages the paper is just not sturdy enough. It’s too bad, because this is a really good looking little sketchbook, and comes in a lot of good sizes and with lined paper too which has a lot of different options for covers.

 

Thursday Review: Pelikan Pelikano Fountain Pen

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I like to draw with fountain pens. Now that I’ve discovered the joys of Noodler’s inks (a full post on those coming up soon) I have felt the need to buy a few more pens. I own now a mix of around a dozen pens, of which I keep 6 inked at all times. It’s a bit much. When I’m sketching I find I reach for one pen over and over again. That pen is my Pelikan Pelikano medium point in blue. I keep it inked with a blue or a blue black ink at all times.  There is nothing special about this pen. It’s an inexpensive school pen that lays a nice medium line and a lot of ink. It’s comfortable and easy to clean.  I’m not worried about breaking it or tossing it around because it was pretty cheap.

The important parts about this pen for you to know is that it has a medium point steel nib, it is what is referred to as a “wet” writer, in that when it puts down a line of ink it’s generous in the amount of ink in that line. This means my blacks are truly black and I can blend those lines with a wet brush.  The steel nib is stiff and doesn’t have much line variation but can be abused. I’m not gentle with this pen. I tend to have a heavy hand and it takes that abuse and keeps on writing.

The body of the pen is translucent frosted blue plastic. It’s not gorgeous and it’s not ugly, like most school pens it’s functional. You don’t want to have a pen your classmates will steal, they won’t steal this one. The cap is brushed steel or aluminum with a plastic clip. The pen isn’t going to win any design awards but it works. This pen is a cartridge or converter pen. I hate cartridges and I’m not overly fond of converters, each holding 1ml of ink, sometimes less. That’s not a whole lot of drawing for me. I converted this one to what is called an eyedropper pen by using outdoor grade silicone caulking to plug the 2 vent holes in the end of the body. The body now holds 3ml of ink, which is a whole lot of sketching and drawing.  While not a difficult job it was a tad fiddly to do but has held up for several months of sketching and drawing. Alternately someone could refill the cartridges with a syringe.

I’ll tell you about a couple of other go to pens I use for drawing soon.

Here is a picture I drew using this pen and a few others as well as a brush pen.

 

Another wine bottle in inks

Thursday Review: MiquelRius Grid Notebook

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MiquelRuis 300page Grid Notebook with Red vinyl cover

I bought this notebook 4 or 5 years ago while searching for a Ciak brand notebook. As a notebook snob and a bookbinder I find this book to be just MEH.

First it’s perfect bound- glue with no stitching. Eventually with hard use pages will fall out. It’s just a matter of when not if. Perfect binding is simply not sturdy enough for the kind of abuse I put my notebooks and journals through. I will say that I’ve been carting this notebook around for 2 or 3 months and it’s held up pretty well so far. Also due to the binding and thickness of the book, it will not open completely flat while writing, which is a nuisance.

The pages are 15 to 18 pound in weight and very thin. Almost every pen I own strike through (is visible on the reverse side) and 90% bleed through. This means I can only use one side of each sheet of paper. So that drops the 300 pages of the book down to 150 usable surfaces. So even if I wanted to brave the non-flat writing surfaces of the left side of the notebook, I could barely read what I wrote. Additionally some of the inks I own feather like mad on this paper. I’m talking about relatively well behaved inks like Diamine Chocolate Brown.

The paper is very smooth and has the best light pale blue grid I’ve ever seen. It’s what drew me to the brand in the first place. After looking at a dozen or so gridded notebooks, I fell in love with the pale blue of this grid. It’s pale enough to blend into the background and not interfere with the writing when you are referring back to your writing. The pen glides over it. It’s not as smooth as Rhodia or Claifontaine paper but its way better than Moleksine paper. Ink is better behaved on the right side of the MiquelRuis paper than moleskine paper. The paper definitely has a right and wrong side for fountain pen use. One side is smooth and the other has a little more tooth to it and grabs the tip of the pen ever so slightly.

The format of the book I purchased is great- at 6×8 inches I’m finding the page size perfect for writing and recording thoughts and sketches. The size is good for slipping into a book bag.The 300 pages is a tad on the heavy size for every day toting about but if it were the only notebook you were to carry it wouldn’t be bad. They come in 100 and 200 page counts as well.

Would I buy another one of these notebooks? Probably not. The bright vinyl cover is nice but doesn’t speak to me the way a leather cover does. The paper’s lovely pale blue grid is about the only thing I really like about this notebook. Using both sides of the page is important to me, using just one side seems very wasteful to me. I prefer a stitched notebook for durability. I have to mention that pale blue grid again; it’s why I keep reaching for this notebook. This would be a good gift idea for the vegan writter on your shopping list. They also offer a host of recycled vinyl options that I'd like to see.

I purchased mine about 5 years ago at Barnes and Noble. I notice that the brand is no longer listed on their website. When I purchased this particular note book it was the last one on the shelf. It cost $10. You can buy these notebooks at the miquelrius website here.

Pros:

  • 300 Pages
  • Sturdy Vinyl Covers
  • Cheap $10
  • Great pale blue grid
  • Mostly fountain pen friendly o n the right hand pages
  • Smooth paper is nice for writing

Cons:

  • 300 pages are heavy
  • Almost all my pens and inks exhibit strike through and bleed through
  • Not good for a wet nib
  • Can only write in it- sketching would result in horrible bleed
  • Forced to write lightly
  • Perfect bound- not very sturdy
  • Won’t lay flat when writing.

Some inks that did well on the paper:

Noodler’s Bulletproof Black, Eel Blue, Walnut, Beaver, Eternal Brown and anything BUT Herbin Bleu Nuit in an EF nib.

Happy Holidays

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I want to take a brief moment and thank everyone for coming by my blog and reading. You give me constant inspiration and enjoyment. I truly enjoy and read every comment, though I can't always comment back (I hope that changes in the coming year) I want to thank YOU all for commenting and making this past year wonderful.

I hope that your holiday is as warm and bright as mine is shaping up to be. I wish you love and happiness for the holiday and the upcoming year. Make art!

 

As a thank you to all the blog readers, I'm announcing here first that I'm going to offer OSA: Drawing 101 as a self study session. You can read more about it here.