INKY FINGERS

 I refilled the fountain pen I use every day.  I cannot do this without getting ink on my fingers.  Oh, well.

DAY 11

The prompt for today's #30daysketchbookchallenge is "Wallpapers".

No wallpaper in our house, so I just googled it until I found an image I liked.  There are millions of choices out there.

I used my fountain pen with black ink.  Then used a dip pen for the gold ink.  I mixed white ink with the black to get a grey which I applied with a brush.  Then finished it all off with a watercolor background.

DAY 7

 Here it is, Day 7 of #30daysketchbookchallenge and today's prompt is  "Something Made of Plastic".

I love my cold Green Tea and always have a few empties in the recycle bin.

I used my regular black ink, but also added some green and gold inks.  I don't use them very often, so that was fun.  Then added a few splashes of watercolor.

DAY 6

 Day 6 of the #30daysketchbookchallenge and the prompt is 'Trees'.

I did this line drawing with my fountain pen.

DRAWN TEXTURES

 This morning was a zoom class with Paul and Suhita's Sketching PlayLab.  It was about drawing different textures.

SKETCHING PLAYLAB LINES

 Another clinic of Dancing with Lines.  We had lots of fun.  Lots of play.

TYPICAL TUESDAY

 I'm taking a Sketchbook Design workshop with Liz Steele.  

Here's a sketch I started yesterday and finished today.

STILL LIFE - I

 The smoke has finally lessened enough that I could get back to my outside painting of Still Lifes.  

Today's letter is I:

Before all that wonderful stuff above, I was in the studio putting bindings on quilts:

I also made the binding and sewed it onto the back on the Yuki quilt.  I forgot to take pictures though.

MY PENS

 After doing a bunch of laundry and housework in the morning while Darrell was busy in the shop with some potential clients, I sat on the new deck and sketched my pens.  It was a beautiful day - warm but with a nice breeze.

Jax felt he was missing out on something good going on in the shop.

JAPANESE GARDEN

Here's today's watercolor painting from my class with Jenna Howell...

I don't really like the way this turned out.  But I like using  ink to outline everything.

29 FACES - DAY 8

[My challenge is to draw a face from the front page of the Seattle Times from that day.]

This is not from the front page either though.  I found him on A2 of today's Seattle Times.  He looks like a judge in my drawing.  But, he's not.  He's a bad guy, or a good guy gone over the edge a little too far.  

This is a semi-blind contour drawing, meaning I only looked at where my pen was going occassionally to reorient myself.  I tried to keep my eyes on the contours and lines of the subject and 'feel' my way through the drawing.  I find you either get very interesting results, or really really embarrassingly bad results (if you're trying to do a portrait).

My fountain pen, that I usually use, ran out of ink just right after I started.  So, most of this drawing was done with a cheap black Bic pen.  Then I added layers of watercolor trying to build up the darks.  I was more patient this time.

This drawing was done from a photo on page A2 of the February 8, 2014 Seattle Times.  It is uncredited and accompanied a story from Dade City, Florida by Associated Press.

I was looking at some wonderful sketches on UrbanSketchers today.  Someone mentioned Sailor pens that have a caligraphy nib.  Note to self: It sounds like something I just gotta get.  Check it out.