Bill’s birthday cookies

Today is my husband Bill’s birthday and instead of a cake he requested peanut butter cookies . . . so of course I drew some of them cooling on a paper bag. And so ends Inktober 2018.

Actually he had a huge piece of carrot cake yesterday when we ate out at Outback, so he had his cake and ate (cookies) too.

waiting . . .

I thought today was Bill’s last day of cardio rehab therapy, but he just signed up for another month. It seems that it is free for those on Medicare following his kind of surgery . . . and he is enjoying it! So more waiting room sketching for me . . .

This pencil layout is actually all I got down on paper before the two gentlemen were called in to their appointments. So I finished it without them.

yesterday’s inktober sketch

This quick sketch for Inktober #29 is from a photo I took of the dust collector at the woodworks company our son Matt used to work at in Georgetown, TX. He and several co-workers have now left to form their own company.

I started it yesterday but was so tired that I didn’t finish until this morning. Bill has a dust collector attached to his woodshop but this behemoth makes his look like a child’s toy!

a jigsaw eagle

Inktober ink drawing # 28 . . . Almost done! This wooden jigsaw eagle hangs on one of the walls at church. I sketched it with a Kaweco Liliput fountain pen with brown ink cartridge, then bled the ink using a waterbrush.

the pens I want to “rehome”

Yesterday I sketched the fountain pens I use the most and plan on keeping. Today, I drew the pens that I never use, for whatever reason. I would love to rehome these to someone who could get some use out of them!

This Noodler’s Ahab flex fountain pen is like brand new. I ordered it when it first came out but it is just too fat for my hand to use comfortably. For some reason, I also have an extra tube for the filling mechanism and extra o-rings. The pen comes with a built-in filling mechanism so it requires no cartridge or converter.

The pen on the left is a gorgeous hand-crafted one with a barrel made of cow horn. The other two are a Jet Pen Mini, no longer available in plastic, and a Pilot Petit 1 Mini. All three of these pens take standard small cartridges such as the brown ones shown on the right.

The cow horn pen cost $40 originally and is a beautiful piece of workmanship. But the nib has never really worked very well. I know someone who tinkers with fountain pens could easily fix it; I just don’t happen to be one of them, and I don’t know of any fountain pen stores in the area who could.

I tried this Fude de Mannen pen from Sailor and liked how lightweight it is in use. Easy to tip the nib for a variety of lines, though when making the broadest line possible there is sometimes a tiny line above the wide line. This is caused by the end of the feed being too close to the nib.

My favorite fude nibs are a Duke 209 and a converted Lamy Safari nib I did myself.

This Platinum Carbon Desk pen works great with a very fine line. But I can also get a very fine line with my other pens when the nib is turned upside down, so I rarely use it.

This Platinum Preppy pen came free with an order of Noodler’s fountain pen ink, and had been converted into an eye dropper pen. Meaning that instead of cartridges or converters, you just fill the barrel with ink. A massive supply of ink available between refills! There is an o-ring at the top of the barrel that provides a seal; to maintain its water tightness, you dab a very tiny amount of sealing wax around the o-ring. But I’ve never had to do this. I simply don’t need such a large supply of ink in one single pen!

cutting down a collection

Over the past 11 years I have built up quite a collection of fountain pens but I have decided to cut down my collection to only the pens that I actually use regularly. These are pretty much it for me . . . The others I have aren’t ever used so why keep them?

These represent various size nibs as well as type: regular round, stub, and fude. Inks are both water-resistant and water-soluble in my favorite colors of black, gray, sepia, brown, “burnt sienna”, light golden brown, dark blue, purple, and turquoise. There are several Lamy Safaris, a Lamy Joy, a Duke 209, a Noodler’s Konrad, 2 Noodler’s creepers, a Pilot MR retro, and 2 Kaweco Liliputs.

Some of the unused pens have been cleaned up to give away as gifts. The rest I think I’ll sketch tomorrow. Maybe I will figure out how to sell them on eBay.

And just maybe, someday, there may be room for one more fountain pen that I would love to have but can’t afford: a Pilot (Namiki) Falcon extra fine soft nib with Spencerian customization for extra flex.

new kitchen light

Bill is now back in his woodshop now — his first project was to turn a vintage galvanized milk strainer into our new kitchen light. And we love it! So much that we are keeping the old lights just in case; if we should ever move away from this cabin, we are taking the new lights with us!

His next project, make the task light that goes over the stove — out of a galvanized chicken feeder!

(The cool thing about sketching is all the dirty dishes and clutter instantly disappeared!)

a few more books

Another busy day doing non-sketching stuff. So I returned to a section of my bookshelf for today’s Inktober ink sketch: this time, a selection of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Inktober # 23, a ghoul

We went to Lowe’s today for parts needed to wire our new kitchen lights Bill is making. Outside, there was this ridiculously large blow-up ghoul for Halloween —- I just don’t understand the popular trend to decorate for Halloween on the same scale as Christmas. But then, I’m usually not too fond of the overly commercial Christmas decorations either. It seems that the history behind various feasts and holidays gets totally lost these days.

And, yes, under all this boldly garish paint is an ink drawing for Inktober. It just got lost.

Grandma’s saucepan

Bill and I both love cooking with this small pan. When his mother and I were going through her mother’s things after she died, I set it aside to remember Grandma by — she was always cooking for all of us! Turns out it’s the best pan we’ve ever used. The heavy glass lid allows food to simmer without boiling over or “spitting” out the edges.

Club Aluminum Hammerware was made around 1930 to 1950. I would love to find a larger size saucepan and a medium-sized Dutch oven made of the same sturdy materials! But for now, I just did a quick sketch of it.