Why so many Lamy pens? Well I’ve got fine, extra fine and bold nibbed pens filled with sepia brown De Atramentis ink for natural history and another set filled with black for general sketching and for comics. Plus two for lettering and one with a non-waterproof black cartridge.
The Lamy ink in the cartridge just a bit more freely than the De Atramentis, so I use that for quick sketches when I’m not going to go add a watercolour wash, such as yesterday evening at the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society.
A random selection of inks – and Tipp-Ex – from the plan chest drawer but the kind that I’m re-ordering today is my regular De Atramentis Document Ink – one Black and one Sepia Brown, which is what I’ve used in this drawing. The advantage is that I can add watercolour to the drawing after just a few minutes without the ink running.
Watercolour doesn’t give me the flat colours that I like when I finish off the drawing on the iPad, but I like the messiness, subtlety and luminosity that I can get with the watercolour. Plus it’s quicker than the scanning and setting up involved in the iPad approach.
Blotty Gulls
I like the quick pen and wash effect that you can get by blotting non-waterproof ink with a dab of water, which is what I did this morning with my Lamy Safari with a Lamy ink cartridge. The table on the balcony at the Boathouse Cafe at Newmillerdam was dappled with dew after a cool (and probably frosty) night, so I dipped my finger in a drop and used that, but the disadvantage of water soluble ink for me is the danger of accidentally blotting a drawing, as I did this morning as I opened my sketchbook, causing a slight blot on yesterday’s treacle tins drawing.
When my order arrives from The Writing Desk I’ll be filling up my various pens with brown and black and going back to waterproof De Atramentis.
With Storm Eunice lashing the studio windows, this seemed like a good time to prepare for getting out and sketching when the spring weather comes, checking the contents of my main art bag. This was drawn in the 8×8 inch Pink Pig Ameleie sketchbook, using the Lamy pens and the Winsor & Newton professional watercolours that I keep in there.
All ready to go out sketching now , , , when the weather improves.
My illustrator friend John Welding – who, thanks to lockdown, we’ve spotted in passing on his bike just once in the past year – posted some beautifully shot ‘drapery’ studies of himself which he’d taken as reference for an illustration project (loan of flat cap by Steve Hopewell).
I needed a tonal subject to test out my ink washes on, so this was ideal, so many thanks to John.
I started drawing from his photograph with a dip pen with a Waverley nib, using De Atramentis Document Ink.
Pen and Wash
I’ve revived an ink wash system that I used on location in the Peak District when I worked on my black and white published sketchbook High Peak Drifter. The washes from then had dried up long ago, so I cleaned out the jars (they’re plastic sample jars from a pharmacy) and remixed the four greys. Since testing them out in these swashes, I’ve made the ‘Pale’ and ‘Med. Pale’ a bit lighter and the ‘Dark’ a bit darker. As with the drawing, I used De Atramentis Ink.
Another approach to recording our morning walk around our local patch: I took a photograph of this old roadside quarry with my iPhone and, back in the studio this afternoon, I’ve drawn it in dip pen and De Atramentis Document Ink from my iPad.
Just the watercolour to add now. I’m so unfamiliar with using this larger Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolours box that I’ve got out my swatches as a reminder. As I was getting out my watercolours I was interrupted by a beeping: Barbara’s brother John, currently, like most of the rest of us, sitting things out at home, was giving us a video call on the iPad, something he’d never tried until last weekend. I get a lot of use from that iPad.
