It is hard to make a post about a cemetery at the end of 2021 upbeat. Fraola Cemetery is still a modest resting place. There are still grey beasts departing from the earth here. I am still surprised at how far you can get on a bike in a short period of time. However, we've just had snow and it is hard for my 36 year old self to imagine going for a bike ride on New Year's Eve. The sketch above was done with Diamine Inkvent Ink: Ash. Originally Posted December 31, 2006
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15 years ago I was getting ready to go on a little trip... across the country on a bicycle12/29/2021
Originally Posted Friday, December 29, 2006
Oh the things I must do...
I'm no stranger to Advent calendars, festivities, and traditions; but the Diamine Inkvent Calendar really was something else. Every morning my kids and I hunted for the next door and popped it open to a reveal a new color, sheen, or shimmer. In my spare moments during the day I plotted how I might integrate the new ink into a drawing or sketch. Ideally the sketch would feel like Christmas or winter. On a good day I was also able to have the sketch relate to some of my devotional texts: Christ in Our Home or Bread for the Day. I've always struggled to actually retain any of the daily readings. However, doing some copy work and the act of choosing one verse to focus on really helped a little more stick. If you followed me on Instagram where I posted daily my inksplorations, you might have noticed the majority of my posts were after 10pm and there were about 6 days that I was a day behind. I still loved the daily reading, writing, and painting practice. I already have my next project lined up and that will be rolling out in the next week or so. Here is our full review of the calendar. Which inks were your favorites? I'd love to hear in the comments! Find me on Instagram to see more pictures @anotherbunny14 I love this time of year. I tend to get 40 amazing ideas for decorations and traditions and I manage to pull off 2. I am glad we did this one. It went fast and the kids even helped hammer in the staples. Supply List
Lay out the boards. Grab your fence boards and lay them out on the ground. Keep adjusting them until you have a star that looks as symmetrical as you want. Don't worry about which boards are on top and which are on bottom. The boards are pretty thin and long so they will flex for you. It didn't hurt that mine have been soaking in the rain for the last several months. Screw the boards together. Use two screws at each point and two screws at each cross section. Make sure that you don't have screw tips poking out the back side to get hurt on. I used screws that were exactly the length of the two boards' combined thickness. So I had to be careful. Attach the lights. It is easier if you move the star up onto sawhorses or a work table at this point. Start at the center of the bottom of your star with the female ends of the plugs. Tack on all three light strands at once. Stagger the starts of the strands so that your lights will be more evenly spread out. Orient the plastic staples on the boards to ideally strain the wires the least. Let me know if you try it out in the comments! Any other exciting light displays that you've made?
I whipped up a batch of my pumpkin pudding tonight. The true story is that I didn't buy Nanaimo bars and strawberries at the grocery store this week and something was missing from my life. Then I remembered that I keep the ingredients for this recipe on hand at all times. I have a ton of things in the works and this recipe felt like something I could accomplish tonight.
August and the first half of September really felt like a weather yo-yo. Now, we have now finally transitioned into autumn and it is wonderful. The spring and summer are really the best time to do Urban Sketching in western Washington. Now that the rain is here, I'm not sure how much I'll get out and sketch about town. These begonias were so gorgeous and while I like the sketch, the flowers were so much prettier in person. I've had this mosquito-netting-equipped-hammock for 15-20 years and it is still amazing. We took a couple weekends this summer to assess our camping gear situation. There were two tents that have reached the end of their lives. My back disagrees with sleeping on the ground and all of the air mattresses/pads can't seem to hold their air. I'm thankful that hammocks make camping a possibility again and I can retreat to the mountain to have some quiet creative time. I wasn't intending to do this, but my eye is really drawn to the seagull on the top of the shelter. I drew it first and then later on the seagull was replaced by a crow. We really have some great birds here. I like how I drew the cars and the people in the shelter. I was acknowledging that they were there, but not giving them much attention. This is a 7 1/2" gauge track up in Skycomish that gives free rides to the public in the non-winter months on the weekends. They have some beautiful small scale engines and because it was raining, this one was sitting still long enough for me to sketch it. There are big trains around to sketch and if the sun comes out there would be some gorgeous mountains in the background. Almost as equally entertaining is Tommy, the employee who runs the gift shop in the depot. I snuck out in between rain showers to sketch the little cabin that we rented out. The mountains even peeked out a little bit and they make a very sketchable dramatic background. I highly recommend Hwy 2 / Stevens Pass as a sketching getaway. More cursive... and a frightening trip into my imagination...It is not always possible to get out and sketch the nifty things in our community. I did start to fill the pages of my sketchbook with cursive. It was a great way to use up some ink in pens I wanted to clean out. Much of my writing was just snippets of conversation, notes from watching Netflix, or just recordings of mundane life events. Then, because I never intend to re-read the journal pages, I paint on them. I pull things out of my imagination and hope that the paint will do most of the work for me. It is a great way to get the paint brush onto the paper and just see what happens. What's next?I also spent a chunk of time crafting a planner traveler's notebook style set-up. I am loving it and I'm going to share it in a video with you soon. I think as the weather cools down more I'll be doing more of this cursive business and also working on some Winter Projects. I'm honing in on a book about Train Days and a werewolf/there was an old lady who swallowed a fly style story. Wish me luck!
I was just sitting down to write my reflections and my kitten wanted to curl up inside my shirt. This is the most adorable thing ever, but this time it alerted me to her need for a bath. You'd be proud. I didn't get any large gashes this time. This has been the story of July. It has been all kitten baths and meltdowns over breakfast cereal. It has been a challenging month and I would ordinarily be hard pressed to remember the good moments. Thankfully, I can look back at my sketches and remember some really amazing moments... some with my kids and some without. My sister and I got out (no kids) and met up with the Bremerton Urban Sketching group #uskbremerton. This group is filled with wonderful, talented, and encouraging sketchers. They all have great stories to tell and this street even had its own story to tell. I wish I'd captured the seagull that made an unusual noise or the skateboarders that were constantly streaming down this one-way section of street. Our church services moved back inside this month. It has come with its own set of challenges and you can see I've illustrated the hybrid zoom/ in-person service we've done. As a sketcher moving inside has been tough and i've struggled with picking a subject several times. This was really the most amazing fourth of July. I met up with some family and our kids ran around and played on the beach and even got themselves pretty wet and salty. I didn't know that there would be an airshow with the Tacoma Narrows Bridges in the background. Such a treat! The next day I went with my kids and husband to a park on the other side of the Narrows and started to sketch the bridges. Immediately and randomly my TWSBI Eco with Noodler's Ink Rome Burning started burping/blotching ink. I tried to make the best of it, but it took forever to dry and I even had to blot it the next day. Noodler's Ink bonds with cellulose and some of the thick spots didn't have any cellulose to bond with. Thankfully on Goulet Nation's Facebook page someone was having a similar problem. Air was getting into my pen and the suggestion of reseating my nib and feed unit did the trick. I love our new house color! I might get to painting our exterior doors this weekend. The bubblegum pink color I picked out will hopefully be an amazing pop of color. We would kind of be cheating if we called this an urban sketch. The cross wasn't really in the background of the flowers. It was in the room, but much farther off to the right. The mess of keyboard, microphones, speakers, and cords directly behind the flowers were not what I wanted to sketch that morning. I do like what I did with the stems under water. I used fountain pen on a wetted spot of paper. We don't have the most architecturally interesting church, but I believe it was designed to be reminiscent of a barn. This is Sally's house. It had more rooflines than I had anticipated when I suggested we get together and I sketch her house. I let her keep it after I took a picture. Then because I still wanted a sketch to bring home with me from the trip I did this fast sketch of Sally. It doesn't do her justice, but she did have a really cute hair flippy thing happening that day. There was a fun story behind her necklace. It was a souvenir that she had wanted, but didn't get. Years later she happened upon it second hand and snatched it up for a fraction of the price. Also, her lips are not large and red... but I thought large red lips would be fun. This was another Bremerton Urban Sketching outing and I opted to do this plaque really close up. This month I demonstrated that I really need to practice sketching people more. I sketched my StablO portable easel for a review. Check that out here. I posted it up on instagram and I even recieved comments from StablO in France. They hadn't yet seen anyone use it with a spiral notebook the way I had. Very fun! This church and the trash can below were both done at Kiwanis Park in Bremerton at another Bremerton Urban Sketchers meet up. I hadn't meant for the reliefs on the end of the church to look like music notes, but they look like they are. Also, the power lines look like a disorderly music staff. I finished the month with a bang. I had day to myself and after I spent the morning screen printing, I headed out to downtown Port Orchard. Our family loves this clock tower on the town hall. The clock is partially broken and it is going to cost way too much to fix, it was all great to sketch. In order to get this view I had to set up on the sidewalk: lots of car traffic, but not much foot traffic. On my way to find a rueben I spotted a couple of unusual masts in the distance in the marina. The Lady Washington was tied up! It was an amazing view for my dinner and it stayed long enough afterwards to sketch. I got lucky!
Do any of you experience seasonal productivity?I've started to notice that different seasons of the year bring their unique traditions, flavors, and demands on my time. Duh, right? In the spring and summer much time is spent in the garden: planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting. The spring's return of light is so exciting that I need to get outside and sketch. In the summer I get so distracted with all the fun random projects (this summer was screen printing). In Western Washington, the fall brings a constant drizzle from the sky and then the daylight just evaporates. It is just so so so so dark in December and there are holiday festivities that distract me. In October 2020 I started to draw bunnies... and I didn't stop until the weather got better and the sun came back. I drew a lot of bunnies. Check out the post about it here. Also, 2020 holidays had a refreshing lack of activities which left me room to get my creative repetition on. I am hoping that Winter 2021-2022 will be equally awesome.The bunnies happened by accident. My sister, Chelsea, turned me on to the idea of projects. She recently re-picked up photography (and a new camera) and this video gave her some great ideas. So now I am in the process of being proactive in choosing a winter project. I'd like to pick something:
I love, love, LOVE my StablO for urban sketching, watercolor on the go, and just plain keeping little fingers out of my stuff! If I lost it, broke it, or otherwise found it unusable; I would buy a new one to replace it. I go into depth on how it is used in the video, but let me know in the comments if you have any more questions. A great big shout out to Liz Steel whose blog turned me on to this wonderful wooden contraption from France.
Buy the easel here: stablo.fr/en/home Check out Liz Steel! You can see in the video that I have one brush holder, two cup holders, and two cups. It only comes with one cup holder and one brush holder. I purchased the cups and the extra cup holder separately. June was a busy month for me creatively, but I didn't get in as much sketching in June as I did in May. However, I do like to focus on the 3 W's (What Went Well).
I have found taking random notes in cursive and then adding a bit of a random sketch on top to be quite fun and relaxing! Ducklings are always really cute! My son turned 7 in June and he did this sketch at church. He also changed his tune from "I don't sketch, I draw" to "I am good at sketching"... one of our greater achievements this month! Microphones really are fun to sketch! I met up with the Urban Sketchers Bremerton group @uskbremerton in downtown Bremerton at the marina near the giant propeller. I didn't feel like tackling the propeller and there was this great cluster of giant planters nearby. It was so great to chat with other sketchers and find all of the other things we also shared interest in. My husband is very active in this local club that gives train rides to the public for free. So there is often a line and it was very fun to sit and watch all the parents and kids waiting. I was able to sneak this sketch in while our littlest one took a nap in the stroller. My cousin really enjoys meeting up with my while I sketch and she knits... so we went and checked out the cool old buildings at her alma mater, Pacific Lutheran University. The campus was extra dead for the summer + COVID and there was a nice warm rain (something we don't get much of here). I've done a lot of sketching during outdoor church services and I mixed it up by trying to do the beautiful rose. The windows behind the rose are actually kind of special to me because they belong to the office my mom used for many many years. Gateway Park on the Key Peninsula in Gig Harbor was a blast for our family. After we enjoyed the splash pad, I tucked myself up on the hill and sketched. For some reason I wanted to do a really really good job because it was the last page in my sketch book. I am really happy with it. I especially like all the dandelions on the bottom left. We had a second meet up with the Urban Sketchers Bremerton group in June. This was the Saturday morning of a very hot weekend. We had record setting temperatures the following Monday. So we sketched from where we could find shade to sit... a bit of a limiting factor, but I think it worked out great. The group can be found on Instagram @uskbremerton. Megan @heythere.chickadee has been doing a great job of organizing the meet ups! Looks like I was using my Kung Te-Cheng Ink on the 26th and I did these last two sketches indoors where it was cooler.
This is probably going to be my exciting thing for the summer and it is SO HOT right now! I've been working on some designs as far back as April. Most of them were initially hand drawn, scanned, vectorized, and cleaned up using Sketch. Then I started to investigate the whole screen burning process. There are lots of great YouTube videos and a number of different approaches to building screens, coating them with emulsion, exposing them with the design, and then finally getting some ink on shirts. I took a pile of thrift store frames and stripped them down to the wood. I heard that some screen frames made from wood like to warp. I had some clear coat laying around so I added some to the frames for good measure.
Then I smeared some activated Speedball Diazo Photo Emulsion on one of my screens. I was trying to get it on there with a nice consistent coating... but I missed some spots. I let it dry overnight in a dark dresser drawer. The next day I used clear scotch tape to attach my transparency to the prepared screen. There is a way to do this backwards... so be careful. I'll really have to go into more detail in another post and actually take pictures. Anyways, burning the screen was easier than I thought it would be because it changed color for me.
I've been wanting to revamp the way that I sample my ink. I ran out of room on the paper I was using to do swatches of my inks. I'm not even sure where that paper went when it got banged off the walls from having siding done. The Col-o-ring has been on the market for a while and I finally went for it. Then a month or so after getting it and mulling over how exactly I was going to do it, I got this video done. Do you have ink samples and how do you do them? Share in the comments! I had a busy May which left me with will little free time. However, all of the extras had me really needing that creative therapy. The first half of the month I only made time to sketch while I was at church. This is a practice I've been enjoying because it forces me to sketch quickly and I have captive subjects. Sketching people feels less intrusive than photographing them during a church service. It has also given me something to post on our church Facebook page. The kids and I popped over to Bremerton on the foot ferry. We walked in the direction of where I'd heard from my husband that there was an Urban Sketching meet up flyer. After I sketched this sculpture we were able to find the poster and get the details. The Urban Sketching group in Bremerton is just starting up. I love sketching microphones! Dare you to try it! I always find it a little confusing that the Port of Bremerton has a park in Port Orchard. There are these interesting lamps along the waterfront that I never notice unless I'm sketching them. I also really like how the blue and grey roof detail turned out on the shelter on the left. The second meet up for the Urban Sketching group was at Evergreen Park and it was an extremely blustery day. There was also some bold intermittent sunshine. Apparently, the event was canceled due to said unpredictable weather. I met Justin who also came to sketch and he was subjected to some pretty wild 6:30pm behavior from my son. I doubt he was prepared for the feelings that come from a child who doesn't get to bring the abandoned gosling home. The night was capped off with a fantastic rainbow the whole drive home. Last weekend I had a day to myself and I decided to try bicycle sketching in Seattle. I know what you are thinking and no I did not sketch while I was pedaling. It is a faster way to get to different sketching spots and I refuse to drive to Seattle. My feet thanked me for not making them walk 5+ miles on pavement. It also made it easy for me to drag my sketching (camp) chair along. I'm actually running a little low on space in my Stillman & Birn Beta Square sketchbook. They are not super available right now... so I have decisions to make about what else I want to try. I thought I would buy myself a little extra time by working in the Stillman & Birn I devoted to cursive and watercolor. These are not considered Urban Sketches. There are specific rules for those sketches, especially if you are posting sketches up in a group. I love driving up to Green Mountain Horse Camp, but I struggled to find something I want to sketch up there. The last of the horses, mules, and donkeys just headed out after the holiday weekend. Just a bunch of green foliage and peaceful bird sounds... Naturally when surrounded by glorious nature, I chose to paint a car.
I was very lucky to have Aunt Cathy drive over to Washington so that I could interview her about her creations and enjoy her presence. While she has sold her art previously in Colorado, she is been doing more of other things lately. It was still great to have a laugh with her and hear about petals, birds, and much more. She was a bit elusive. She didn't want her picture taken. She asked me numerous times if I could edit the audio. I loved all of it... so you get to hear it all. You should know that the pieces above are not her favorites... those have all found new homes. Oh and this was the very first time I interviewed someone about their artistic process, but I look forward to doing it again. Let me know if you want to be the next victim (I mean interviewee).
A couple days ago, my aunt was looking at my work and she said that she can’t draw like that, but she wants to. Now aunts come in all shapes, sizes, and wills. This aunt is artistic, independent, hilarious, well traveled, forthright and retired. She wants to spend a whole year traveling Europe and she’ll do it. I could not understand what was standing in her way. I hear it all the time, “I can’t draw.” It is something adults will often say when they mean “I can’t draw like that and I don’t care if I ever learn.” That’s cool. We can’t all do everything. We certainly can’t do everything all the time. However, some of you actually mean “I want to draw, but I don’t feel like I have the capacity or talent to be able to.” I believe that you just need to start practicing. It takes time and my own artistic path is in its infancy. So if you always wanted to draw/paint/write/whatever here is the advice I give: 1. Pick one thing to do over and over. I kept drawing bunnies for several months and you know what? I got better. My bunnies started to look less stupid. They took on little personalities and they made me laugh. I didn’t have to waste time deciding what to draw. I just did it and with limited time in the evenings I was still able to make headway. Liz Steel warms up by drawing her coffee and tea. What would you draw every day? 2. Don’t get hung up on the materials. One day I’ll take my own advice. Use what you have. You don’t need the perfect art supplies. In fact less is probably better. 3. Share with others. You are going to need encouragement and advice. My husband will look at my stuff, but the 6 year old will give me more feedback. I enjoy the network of Urban Sketchers around the world. Also participating in a class will give you the support you need too. There is always social media. 4. Try to listen to only one voice at a time. I am always checking out 3 cookbooks at a time or 3 how-to-draw books at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Pick one teacher or one guidebook to start with. When you’re done with that then look for a new perspective. Remember that this is supposed to be fun. Actually practicing the art is more important that learning from a book how to do it the “right” way. 5. What went well? This is a great phrase to ingrain in your thoughts. Always look for the things you like about your work. Don't dwell on all the things you did wrong. I’ve got below 131 bunnies I drew and characterized before I started on the bunny clipart I made this spring. I had a blast and it was a great way to spend my winter. My family, while supportive, weren't quite sure why I was just painting another bunny.
This ink and I have been together since the beginning. I love it for its amazing ability to stay put when doing a watercolor wash over the top. You will need to be comfortable doing your lines in your sketch in a dark blurple... and that just isn't for everyone.
I went looking for something a little more neutral. It took me a long time to find a black that works just as well (deAtramentis Document Ink Black). I don't feel like Noodler's Ink offers a black that doesn't smudge or run a little when wet. Noodler's 54th Massachusetts is the closest to black that meets this criteria. Some folks think that Lexington Gray is waterproof enough. I disagree. Working on these fish, I actually started with ink on wet. After the fish were all dry, I went in with watercolor and all the Kung Te-cheng ink stayed put beautifully. Noodler's Ink comes in at an amazing price point and I love that Nathan Tardif is a small batch quirky sort of fellow. I almost have a full dozen of his ink bottles. Kung Te-cheng and many others have great archival and bulletproof properties as well. Bulletproof in the case of his ink means that it is forgery proof. So this is some serious ink. It is an ink that likes to be used in a pen. Aside from when it's in my TWSBI Eco, I need to use it daily otherwise it can be a bit hard to get it going. I've never had it ruin a pen, but I hear it is one that is harder to clean out. It is absolutely urban sketching season. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and I even saw a troop of red sequin clad line dancing women in the wild. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get a sketch of them. My sister and I didn’t have an agenda when we set out. Our first stop was the quiet little Wicks Lake. We opted to not stay and sketch though because I struggle to make an interesting sketch of just trees, water, and sky. We landed in downtown Gig Harbor which was bustling with activity. I originally thought I’d sketch one of the many boats, but after setting down at a table, we both tried to tackle this Fishermans Memorial statue. Before today I couldn’t have told you this statue existed. Urban sketching has a way of making you “see” things that have always been there. I've worked sketching into a lot of other outings this spring. When the kids are along the sketches are frequently done quickly. Even a quick sketch is good practice and a nice way of making a memory. The Olympic Peninsula is beautiful and the Sequim area with the Dungeness Spit is a short walk down to the water. It was a long walk for the kids and perhaps a mistake to take it without the stroller, but I still had a bit of energy to do this quick sketch in the wind while the kids checked out the water. I need to go to Port Townsend again. There are so many interesting buildings that I could fill several weekends sketching them! I didn't even get to sketching the boats in the large boat yard. Closer to home we have a lookout/cement tower that takes in the Port Orchard Marina and the Sinclair Inlet. This day the weather dripped on my sketch, but I'll have to go back on a sunny day and try to capture the view of the Olympic Mountains. This view of the Manette Bridge is a short foot ferry ride and a twenty minute walk away from the lookout spot pictured above. Not pictured in the below illustration is the amazing Larry and Kristi's Bakery. The spot I sketched from is across the roundabout from them and they do a vegan maple bar just right! The bright blue of the water is actually a bit of Liberty's Elysium fountain pen ink. Manchester offers views of the Space Needle and the ferries that travel there. We haven't been to the needle for a while and I can't wait to visit again once things settle down. I really like it when I don't color in my whole sketch with watercolor. It is hard to know when more is more or when less is more! They even let me sketch at church! What and where have you been sketching lately? Share in the comments!
It is a good day when you get mail. It is a great day when you get mail from Goulet Pens! I am a big fan of the Goulets and when they sent me a coupon on my birthday for 8 free ink samples with purchase I said, “Yes, please!” I immediately inked up the new Kaweco Perkeo with Diamine Bilberry. The ink is reminiscent of Noodler’s Kung Te-Cheng, but this swab also revealed a bit of a sheen. It has been a month or so since I wrote a letter. The new ink was a great excuse to put a few words down. I found the ink to be cheerful, but not obnoxious; like a child who runs up to you to say something cute and immediately runs away to play again. These random ink samples Goulet sells (and gives away on your birthday if you sign up for the newsletter) are great because I always end up trying inks I never would have tried. Sometimes I find one I love and I didn’t have to spend hours researching to find it. It is a real win win.
What do you have inked up right now? Let me know in the comments! I thought I'd try out a new format to see how I like it. It was unscripted and I overused the phrase "kicking around." Just in case you are interested in doing your own screen printing project at home, here are some helpful links so far.
Charli Marie's DIY Screen Printing Video and PDF My Scanner Free Online Vectorizer Tool Sketch Program (Free 30 Day Trial) I am still trying to brainstorm what else I might want to pull together in this first run of creating screens. I haven't wanted to wear graphic t's for a while myself, but they are cute on the kiddos. Please let me know in the comments what sorts of things you like to see on shirts, totes, etc. It seems like everyone these days has a special diet... or at least everyone in my family. I am no exception. This year my mom's amazing buttercream topped Barbie cake wasn't going work. I made my own cake and gave my mom a deserved break this year. I created this recipe to be egg free, low FODMAP, and delicious. Low FODMAP is also Gluten Free. Alternative flour cakes tend to be good fresh and then the texture goes downhill after that. I've managed to avoid that problem by avoiding icing which allows you to warm them up right before you eat them. This is my first go at writing up a recipe for general consumption and I am very excited about the format. It is both easy to follow along and full of extra details. I used the table feature in Pages to organize the recipe. The Sketch app was great for cropping and rotating one of my bunny clipart SVG files. Then I exported it as a PNG to use in Pages and to make the recipe a little more "me". You can preview the recipe below before you download the PDF that you can print. How do you like to treat yourself for your birthday? Please let me know how it goes in the comments!
Fountain pens are amazing. They write smoother with less effort. The inks have a variety of useful, cost effective, beautiful, and at times permanent properties.
I started using them circa 2012 and I'd like to say that I didn't look back, but I did. I put the wrong ink (India ink) in my first pen and it ruined the pen. My next pen came free with my bottle of Noodler's Kung Te Cheng. However, these Platinum Preppy's got cracks and leaked. My next upgrade was to a Pilot Metropolitan. Now these are enjoyable writers, but I found that if I didn't use them daily they dried out a little and they were hard to get started. Tired of fighting with them, I put them in a bin on my shelf for about five years. About a year ago I found myself reconnecting with my favorite fountain pen retailer: Goulet Pens. Turns out they have been very busy over the last decade creating amazing YouTube videos educating you on all things fountain pens. They even have a shopping guide dedicated to Fountain Pen Tools for Sketching. I have one and only one recommendation for someone new to fountain pens who wants to use them with watercolor. It is a TSWSBI Eco. I would get one with a Fine or Medium nib to start with. Here are some key features: Ink Capacity: This pen holds a lot of whatever kind of ink you like. If you fill it up before a weekend away sketching you won’t run out. Demonstrator: The clear bodies on these pens allow you to see at all times exactly how much ink is in there. Ready to Write: You don't need to use this pen every day. In fact I've gone weeks in between uses and it is still ready to go. This was a big frustration for me with the Pilot Metropolitan. Posts: This means that you can put the cap on the back of the pen securely. If you are out sketching or if you have kids, this is a very important feature. Value: You get all these features at a very reasonable price. $31 seems like an expensive pen, but the ink is very cost effective and even more fun. Lamy makes some great pens too. My brother in law swears by a Safari and keep my Al-Star with my on the go sketching kit (mostly because it doesn't fit in my pretty pen holder on my art desk). I also enjoy a Studio because it feels substantial and it makes me feel fancy. Liz Steel loves her Joy. I love that you can swap out the nibs easily on all these models, but sometimes I get surprised that the ink ran out. Just make sure you get a cartridge converter to go with your Lamy. The TWSBI Diamond 580 is marginally more enjoyable to write with than the ECO for almost twice the price. The cap doesn't post nicely, but it is always inked up at my work desk and I reach for it all day long. I have a couple other pens and there are certainly many better pricier pens on the market. However, for a budget friendly pen that you will not outgrow I recommend the TWSBI ECO. I will do a more detailed post on ink, but to quickly pick an ink that is permanent for doing watercolor on top of I would go with either De Atramentis Document Ink Black or Noodler's 54th Massachusetts. These reviews are purely from my own personal experience and I do not profit financially from you taking my advice. Please share in the comments your favorite fountain pens for sketching. Do you do a watercolor wash over your ink? This process is supposed to be sort of mindless and easy for me. I devoted a whole Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook to this type of creative practice and I follow the same steps each time. Fewer variables = less thinking = more doing. I start by picking a song or poem that I have memorized. I try not to pick the “perfect” poem. Catch a Falling Star featured in The Princess Diaries is one I use to unsuccessfully sing the kid to sleep. I put the blue tape down to give myself a visual edge to write up to. I picked up a TWSBI Eco with a Fine nib filled with Liberty's Elysium and started practicing my cursive. Originally I was going to use my watercolors to do the stars, but I changed my mind and used little puddles of fountain pen ink. The inks were already in other TWSBI Ecos so I just twisted a few droplets out into my palette. I used from left to right: Sailor Ink Studio 162, Sailor Ink Studio 252, Noodler's Apache Sunset, Noodler's Rome Burning, Sailor Ink Studio 224, and Noodler's Dostoyevsky. The apple page is the Johnny Appleseed prayer (Noodler's Rome Burning) with watercolors over top. I did the stoplight a few months back. I wrote the little song: won't you tell me where I'm going won't you tell me when to stay won't you tell me what to do Lord it's been that kind of day I sing it to the the tune that's whistled in Robin Hood. What little songs or poems do you have memorized? Post it in the comments.
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