It was cold yesterday so we were huddled underneath the awning next to the reptile shop to drink our coffee. At least we got the ‘desirable’ table right next to the tank of Eastern Long Neck Turtles. I love watching them swim about the tank, but they are also adept at just sitting underwater for long periods of time. I was particularly enamoured of the turtle stack in the corner of the tank.
A tank of Eastern Long Neck Turtles, pen and ink and gel pen, 8 April 2015
This morning’s coffee break resulted in this set of portraits.
Patrons of the Italian bakery, pen and ink, 7 April 2015
We were out on Easter Saturday and because our regular coffee spot was closed for the holiday we opted for an alternative venue. Ah new scenes to draw. Out came the trusty pen (Lamy Safari) and ink and the somewhat dodgy pen (Duke 209). My attention was caught by the plane tree framed by the cafe door. I also liked the people sitting on the right. So far so good. Then I thought I’d better capture the person on the left before they finished their snack and left. I realised too late that I’d drawn the person on the left at the wrong scale.
The original drawing, cafe pen and ink, 4 April 2015
I couldn’t resist a little tweak using Photoshop to enlarge the figure on the left to get an idea of how the drawing might have turned out.
Re-jigged on Photoshop, the figure on the left enlarges to a more realistic scale.
I’ll console myself with the old saying that “the only person who’s never made a mistake is the person who’s never done a thing”.
Like many sketchers I always carry a small sketchbook in my bag for sketching wherever I go. These days I frequently take a larger book as well, that is if I remember it. Today I forgot the larger book so I sketched in the smaller one instead. In the small book I found two other drawings which I haven’t previously posted so here are two quick drawings and a slow one to finish off.
Firstly a sketch captured while I was scoffing fish and chips down the coast several weeks ago. Most people sit on the back verandah of this fish shop, solely for the view. Fending off marauding seagulls may also be necessary.
The Clyde River bridge (the other one) at Bateman’s Bay NSW, pen and ink, 16 March 2015
Yesterday I was sitting at the green waste re-cycling centre whiling away a few minutes while my partner tied a tarp over our load of soil. This is what I could see in front of me.
Red Hill from Corkhill Bros at the Mugga Lane tip, pen and ink, 30 March 2015
Finally I spent rather more time on this drawing of the pallets at the back of the fruit shop, Jabals Halal Market, at Mawson.
The back of Jabals Halal Market, Mawson ACT, pen and ink, 31 March 2015
I have run into a bit of a problem with my fountain pen, the Duke 209 with the bent ‘fude’ nib. Having used up the ink in the cartridge provided I was keen to change over to a different colour and brand of ink. The only problem was that as soon as I did so my pen just stopped working as well as it should. It was scratchy and the ink wasn’t flowing. I figured that as the ink had dried out since I used it last, that there might be a problem with a blockage to the ink flow. Quite frustratingly the nib on my pen didn’t want to come out of it’s holder, so I had great difficulty trying to see if dried ink was the issue there.
Catbus, (one of my favourite characters fro m the animated film My Neighbour Totoro, Windsor and Newton Calligraphy ink in Sepia, 21 March 2015
I could manage to get some indifferent and inconsistent lines out, but I thought that pushing the pen to get those marks was probably causing some damage as well. Enter Youtube.
There’s no doubt that you can find just about anything you want (and plenty of things you’d rather not know) on the internet so I did a search for fountain pen troubleshooting to see if someone out there could help with my problem. And they could. It seemed that I had several standard problems, the nib wasn’t wet enough, the tip of the nib was out of alignment and possibly my nib needs polishing, although I haven’t checked that last one out.
I followed the suggestions made at The Pen Habit and at least now I have my ink flowing more smoothly and the scratchiness of the pen has just about disappeared. My partner finally managed to get the nib out by brute force and the nib has been cleaned. Whether this pen will continue to work well into the future is something I’ll just have to find out. At least it was inexpensive so I feel I haven’t lost much if it does ultimately turn out to be dodgy. Here is another version of the Catbus, following pen modification.
Catbus, second version, Windsor and Newton Calligraphy ink in Indian Red, 29 March 2015
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