Stabilo pens and prickly things

Recently Brenda Swenson posted on Facebook about the fun of sketching with Stabilo point 88 water-soluble pens — you can find Brenda’s blog post about sketching with Stabilo pens here. I was at Michael’s craft store to get some yarn and they had a big display by the register of these pens, so I picked up two of them.

The sienna (color #75) is just a bit too orangey for me, but I really like the brown (#45)! Similar in behavior to the Elegant Writer calligraphy pen I’ve played around with, you can wash out a bit of shadow from your sketch, then let it dry. When watercolor is later added, the ink lines stay put.

The two prickly things I sketched were the remains of a pine cone that a squirrel left on our patio after snacking, and a magnolia seed pod after it opened up and let some seeds fall.

final tweak . . . I think

I couldn’t help it. My previous color chart just wasn’t quite right.

So I switched out the perylene scarlet for pyrrol scarlet — it seems to behave better in mixes. And then went ahead and purchased a brighter turquoise than the cobalt turquoise light that I already had — I chose phthalo turquoise because it’s two components both mix well.

I replaced the blue apatite with indigo. Actually, I mixed my own indigo — Daniel Smith’s indigo is made of indanthrone blue and lamp black; I mixed a bit of indanthrone blue with the lunar black I already had, stirring them right in the pan with a toothpick. I think next time I will use a bit more blue and less of the black.

When I did this chart yesterday, I was fighting to keep my brush and the paints wet enough — it’s been very hot and dry here lately. So the mixing swatches aren’t as smooth as I hoped for but they give me an idea of what colors I’ll get.

a change of trees

We are in the process of moving from gently rolling hills of pastures and live oaks . . .

. . . to an area where trees make their presence known, the loblolly and other tall pines.

playing . . .

Yesterday in discipleship class and church, I just played around with water-soluble inks — an Elegant Writer pen and my Kaweco Liliput pen with a brown ink cartridge. And a water brush, of course. A fun way to do a wash without paint.

my current copy-palette

Currently my Demi Palette is holding a knock-off copy of Jose Naranja’s limited palette, which has held my fascination for quite some time. I wasn’t entirely sure what colors he actually uses in his amazing detail-filled journals, but he recently posted the color names on Instagram.

But then he did not mention what brand(s) of watercolor he has. I tried to put together a similar set using the paints that I already had — my Payne’s gray is much bluer than his, making it almost the same as the indigo I had a small bit of. The only turquoise I have is the paler cobalt turquoise light. His red seemed like a mid-range red, not very warm or cool, so I tried perylene scarlet.

The easiest way to see how my substitutes work is make a color chart . . .

I’m thinking I may still tweak this set a bit more. Maybe a turquoise that is more of a teal. And rather than a gray or black, perhaps I will add lunar violet? It’s a bit gray but with a slight violet cast; violet is a very hard color to mix with this palette.

assorted seating

Our normal furniture is still at the cabin, being “staging” for potential buyers to see the space as lived in. Which means we find whatever works to sit on at the new place. Our daughter and son-in-law brought over their old IKEA chairs. I remember “rocking” our granddaughter Mikala in one of these when she was a baby — she is now 16 years old!

We also brought over an overstuffed chair from Bill’s grandmother — it takes up more space visually than my favorite Morris chair we left at the cabin. We brought a Swedish rocking chair from the same grandmother and my own grandmother’s sewing rocker, which has been in my bedroom since I was a teenager myself!

our new longhorn

Just playing around with water-soluble ink in my Kaweco Liliput fountain pen . . .

I love this tiny pen — fits anywhere and wonderfully engineered! But the ink converters that fit it aren’t the best to work with so I buy pre-filled cartridges. Most inks in cartridges are not water resistant so I use them like this.

However, I just bought some international short cartridges from Goulet Pens that contain my favorite De Atramentis Document ink! So far they only have black but I’m hoping they soon offer brown as well.

random sketching

Just randomly drawing a bit here and there in my small purse-sized sketchbook . . .

. . . and playing with a limited palette in my Demi Palette from Expeditionary Art.

Sketch With Me: favorite things

In our log cabin, I found myself spending very little time in my art studio. With its location being in the loft, accessible by a steep ladder-stair, it wasn’t the easiest place to get to for these old legs. 5 1/2 years ago those steep stairs didn’t seem such a big deal but now my legs protest! There is a good amount of mostly-north natural light, but being up against the steep roofline is uncomfortably hot in the summer. So my studio became more of a place to store art tools rather than a place to paint.

At Kristen’s house, where we will be living temporarily while converting the barn into a house, there is a wonderful little office in the northeast corner — lots of light from 2 sides! Now that my art table is set up with tools set out ready to use, I’m spending a lot more time there. Now it’s so much easier to leave and return, taking care of other things while letting ink or paint dry.

This weekend is the Sketch With Me virtual sketch crawl with the prompt “FAVORITE THINGS”. So what better than my favorite art tools? I have two more additional brushes not included that are favorites: my Lowe-Cornell ultra round #8 and #10.

In the Prang box are my most-used watercolor choices:
Quinacridone rose, pyrrol scarlet, quinacridone gold, hansa yellow medium, green apatite, perylene green, cerulean blue chromium, ultramarine blue, transparent red oxide, raw umber, and a mixed gray (ultramarine and burnt sienna, also sold as “Jane’s Grey”).

My new Demi palette holds whatever new combination I’m currently playing with; at present, that is José Naranja’s limited palette he uses in his fabulous mostly-ink sketchbooks. I’m not so sure about having both indigo and payne’s gray, both so similar.

My favorite Pocket Palette is the black one, filled with every one of the 28 colors that I keep in my large Schminke studio palette. Most colors are actually from Daniel Smith; I just keep them in a Schminke box.

Choosing favorite brushes is easy — these are the ones I grab most often. Choosing favorite fountain pens is a bit more challenging, but these are the top 3: a Lamy Safari, my new Pilot Namiki Falcon, and a tiny Kaweco Liliput.

Below is a color chart of all the colors of watercolor I keep in my studio.

our new pool-pet

I laughed when our daughter Kristen bought a Roomba to vacuum, though it does actually keep the pet hair at a minimum and doesn’t seem to bother their three cats.

Now they have bought a similar “creature” to clean the pool. Bill nicknamed it Wall-E and it is now our “pool pet”. Actually does a great job . . . we still have to scoop out the magnolia leaves that float on top of the water though. Wall-E’s work is strictly underwater.

Here he is in action, cleaning up the side of the pool — about to get temporarily stuck on those steps.