Behind the scenes with drawing with ink

Ink runs out eventually. It happens. What to do?

Pens taken apart to show cartridges and ink used

I draw a lot with fountain pens. I know some of my pens really well. I like the way they feel in my hand and how they draw or write. Others are newer for me. They were gifts or I just haven’t used them very much yet. They all need ink somehow though to work. There are disposable ink cartridges that are available for many pens, but I like to get refillable cartridges so I can try out different inks and because it’s more environmentally friendly.

Tonight I spent some time refilling six of my pens with five different inks and five different styles of ink cartridges. Some were easy to fill and made little mess. Others required more care with the addition of a syringe to suck up some ink from the bottle to then inject enough, but not too much into the cartridge and then reassemble. Wash the syringe in order to not contaminate the next jar of ink and repeat with filling the next cartridge.. Wash hands thoroughly at the end. Fortunately soap gets rid of most of the ink stains.

The next step is to take notes of what ink did I use with what pen. I usually do this with a picture and later transfer the details into a notebook. This is also a time to check if the ink is slowly smoothly or not. Sometimes a pen will be stubborn and that will require a full cleaning of all the parts. Most of these from tonight seem like they are working well. I’ll take apart the problem pen another day.

On to drawing.

Drawing my dish rack

There was a recent article in the New York Times (May 1st) about drawing and how helpful for one’s mental health it is. I agree 100%. The author, John Donohue, said he draws his dish rack as one of his strategies, so I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s my first attempt. I set up a stool in the middle of my kitchen and drew my dish rack the best I could within a time limit of 25 minutes.

Give it a try and share. 

1st attempt drawing my dish rack.

#sketching #dishrack  #creativity #creativepractice #mentalhealth#dailypractice #creativitycoaching

Flip-Through Video of My Portugal Travel Journal and Some Time-Lapsed Drawing

I continue to work on my art daily and have also continued making videos of my drawing process making progress on various projects.

The video I made here is a combination of a flip-through of my Portugal Travel Journal to show where it is currently at.

In the video I also work on one drawing from a hillside in Porto that was opposite the Alfândega where the International Urban Sketchers Symposium was held in 2018.

Conveniently across the street from this collection of houses with all their windows and doors (and laundry!), there was a short wall that was great for sitting. During the Symposium, there were dozens of people sitting along this wall looking at the view in my photograph. It was so much fun walking down and stopping to look at artists’ sketchbook after sketchbook with so many different styles and approaches.

All of my videos are available for viewing on my YouTube channel. Click here or go to YouTube and search on my name.

Do you have lots of pictures from trips sitting in your phone and not being looked at? Have you ever wanted to make a travel journal with some of your photos? I love travel journals and I love teaching my workshop, Create a Travel Journal in Ink and Watercolor. The next one will be done live online via Zoom starting Tuesday, April 14th, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm Pacific Time. Check out my workshops page for more information and to register.

A Video of Work on my Glass, Mirrors and Reflections from the MFA Drawing

I am still participating in The Creative’s Workshop. Today was Day 17/100 to show up and do something. A couple of my friends from the course asked if I could make a video of me drawing since they were not artists and don’t know the process.

I filmed a portion of my glass, mirrors and reflections drawing from the MFA three times. Two of them had technically difficulties. My camera seems too heavy for the arm of the stand and the screw to tighten the arm is very stiff. Two of my videos had slow motion movement of the camera moving its focus from the drawing to just the photo I’m working from. Not so informative!!

I hope you find it interesting as a small glimpse into the process of drawing a complicated picture using a photo as a reference.

Glass, Mirrors and Reflections from the MFA

Start of Inktober 2019 Drawings

I love the idea of Inktober - 31 days of drawings done with ink. Using watercolor or colored pencil is allowed but the idea is to do mostly with ink. I never seem to get my way all through the month drawing every day, but I try. There is an official list of prompts below.

Official 2019 Inktober Prompts

For my Inktober challenge, however, I came up with the first 31 or so animals mentioned in the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel. All of those were acquired by page 14 in the book. There are lots more animals mentioned!

I may or may not get to completing this challenge but I have done the first 10 days. A drawing technique that I like to use when approaching a new subject is to do a blind contour drawing of the picture. This means that while I have my pen on the page, I only look at what I want to draw and don’t look at the page. Blind contours are great for getting practice seeing. Drawing is all about drawing what you see and not what you think you see.

Here are my first few inktober drawings with their blind contour drawings next to them. It’s kind of fun to compare the blind one with the later sketch. Sometimes they match really well, sometimes I’m channelling my inner Picasso!

#inktober #inktober2019 #lifeofpianimals #penandink

Blind Contour of a 3-Toed Sloth

Inktober Day 1: a 3-Toed Sloth

Blind Contour of a 2-Toed Sloth

Inktober Day 2: a 2-Toed Sloth

Blind Contour of a Cheetah

Inktober Day 3: a Cheetah

Jantzen Beach Carousel Horses

I was lucky enough to be able to go to Portland, OR last month and visit a conservation and restoration studio (MPF Conservation) where some historic carousel horses from the Jantzen Beach Carousel were in-house being evaluated for restoration. There were about 15 of them there. So interesting! Here are a couple of my takes of two of the horses. I penciled them there and inked them at home.

A Glimpse into One of My Travel Journals...

I am currently teaching a 6-week Travel Journal with Ink and Watercolor workshop. My students for this workshop are so interesting. They jumped in feet first with designing their pages and choosing what images to use together to describe a day. With composition out of the way, I can help with how to draw some of the images they’ve chosen and cover some watercolor basics. Even though I like to use ink and watercolor for my sketchbooks, making a travel journal is telling a personal story. If the artist is more comfortable using watercolor pencils, or pencils or colored markers, that’s fine with me. I just want them to try in some areas watercolor to see what it’s like and its possibilities. I will post student pictures soon!

My image is from a picture I took of the staircase in my parent's house where I grew up. I’m lucky that they are still living there so I can both visit them and it. I love the perspective looking down two flights of stairs and the changing perspective of all the balusters. While I don’t always get much work on my sketchbook done in class, I like to work on it as homework between classes too. I like to do what I ask of my students.

My next workshops at Cloud 9 Art School in Bothell will be on Drawing and Sketching Maps, and another on Drawing and Illustrating Recipes.