Testing out my new Lamy nexx M fountain pen with the De Atramentis Brown ink, I drew the Habitat mug on the coffee table in front of me, then rounded up the available fruit: this time a lemon and two Royal Gala apples. The apples are British and in these days of tense Brexit negotiations, I’m pleased to say that they are flying the Union Jack the right way up on the label, I’ve just checked.
You can see that there’s no problem with the ink running when I add the watercolour wash. Compared with my first drawing of my feet yesterday, the pen is settling in and producing finer lines, which is what I want.
Bananas don’t survive long in this house but here are some that I drew at the beginning of the month, resisting the urge to add colour in this case. These were drawn with a Lamy Safari loaded with De Atramentis Document Black ink.
You might be wondering how my attempts to improve my handwriting are going. Not too impressive so far, but showing slow improvement. These long and short downstrokes improved as I got down the page. In the next exercise, I get to practice real letterforms, ‘hb’ and ‘hp’, as the authors of Improve Your Handwriting point out, these are ‘closely related letters that share the same lines and arches’.
