early morning view

Recently I was sitting in the Morris chair early in the morning, looking out one half of our French doors. The striped patterns of the front pasture’s half-dormant grasses caught my eye, along with part of the Arizona cypress, so I snapped a photo (my iPhone was handy but my sketchbook was not) and later sketched what I saw.

I wanted to ink this in with the “sepia” ink I once mixed using brown and black De Atramentis Document inks — I filled two different fountain pens but neither would write. I usually fill ink converters while attached to the pens, dipping them directly into the ink bottle. But apparently the ink level was lower than I thought, and a bit sludgy. The lid must have been loose and some evaporation thickened what ink was left. I cleaned my pens thoroughly, threw away the ink dregs, and filled this Pilot Kakuno demonstrator pen with the “dark red / burnt sienna” mix instead.