Sketchcrawling at the Pub

Claremont Day Nursery, Dusk; ink & watercolor

Two of my favorite sketchers, Martha and Cathy, joined me for an evening of sketching and dinner at Kensington Circus Pub. The image above was my view out the window just after sunset. Next I sketched a window across the street (below), and then used the page to total my portion of the bill. When I scribbled out a mistake it turned into a creature.

Alchemy, dusk; ink & watercolor

Martha brought her fountain pen collection for us to try out, along with a bottle of Platinum Carbon ink. I was especially interested in her Namiki Falcoln pen, which I’d heard good things about. The two images below were my fooling around with her pens. The Namiki was a little clogged so I switched to using it as a dip pen. It’s a fabulous pen, very flexible and a ton of fun to use, but I found the line to be thicker than I prefer. I was happy to return to my favorite .05 Micron Pigma when I did the first two sketches above.

Ketchup bottle, Namiki Falcoln pen & ink

Cathy gave me a Pilot Varsity pen. It doesn’t have permanent ink so you can use it for ink & wash techniques. I used more ink than was needed to make a good wash so next time I’ll be more restrained when I use it.

Ink bottle, drawn w/Pilot Varsity pen & water wash

We discovered we are all huge fans of the HBO series The Wire which we’re working through on DVD and Cathy shared a few other favorites on DVD that I noted on the page.

I was really tired because I’d been painting all day and then went home afterward and painted until midnight, working on a project I’ll post about soon. But now, back to painting again (with a quick break for watching Adam’s performance on  American Idol).