Lihit Lab Teffa Pen Case and Ohto Comfort Sharp Lead Holders Reviews

This classy-looking pouch is the Lihit Lab Teffa Pen Case. I've filled it with watercolor supplies to serve as a medium size watercolor sketch kit.

Most of you have probably seen my recent review of the Nomadic PE-07 Pencil Pouch, which I use as a very lightweight sketch/watercolor kit. That one lives in my pocketbook and I do love it. It's perfect for those unexpected sketch opportunities that come along while waiting for someone or something.

But I do miss my real brushes, as well as my slightly larger palette for those real brushes. I wanted an additional kit to take hiking and plein air painting, that can work with my custom Arches Rough sketchbook, as well as with the larger 8.5x11" Stillman & Birn books. Those books require the ability to lay down more paint with larger brushes, at least half-pan size paint reservoirs, and larger mixing areas. I ordered this Lihit Lab case to serve that purpose.

As you can see, the front of the case does a great job of holding my brushes, pencils and pens. I considered putting a small piece of Velcro in the center of the upper strip to hold the brushes in place better. The Velcro would give the brushes more security, but would take up space and reduce the number I could fit in there. I decided to try it the way it is first, and it worked just fine.

The brushes were a bit too long and needed help to fit in there. I measured how long they could be, cut them down with a hacksaw, and sharpened the ends with a pencil sharpener so they could be used to scratch out twigs, branches, etc. Then I dipped the sharpened ends in Golden GAC100 to seal the wood. I used old sables and synthetics, since I didn't want to butcher any fabulous brushes that also might get lost out in the field while hiking.

On the left in the above image, you can see my latest favorite pencil lead holders. I've always loved 2mm leads, but the ordeal with trying to keep them sharpened made them difficult to use when convenience is a factor. Well, have I got great news for you! These lead holders come with a sharpener in the end. Yep, problem solved! They are only $3.30 each (and come with a lead) at Jetpens.

I have 2mm leads in many grades of hard/soft, so I made up some labels on a label-maker, and put a different lead into each of the four that I got. Here's a closeup shot of the top of the pencils so you can see where the sharpener is:

Turning over the center divider, you can see how I organized the back of this kit:

My palette and a Mini Mister slide right into the pocket together at the back of the case, and there's room above them for double clip-on oil painting palette cups to hold my water. By keeping one water cup for warm colors and one for cool, I can get by with very little water. As hikers know, water is both precious and heavy to carry! Opposite those are small web pocktes that I use for holding a mini scrubber (from the pharmacy, for brushing gums/teeth), a little vial of Pro White (in place of white tubed gouache), a kneaded eraser, and a metal binder clip.

The palette has velcro on the back of it, and gets affixed to a 9x12 piece of Coroplast (a very lightweight, corrugated plastic), which I've prepared with the other side of the velcro. The palette cups clip onto the bottom of the board, like this:

The empty side of the board then slides into the sketchbook to help keep it secure. You could use rubber bands around the board and page for additional security if you wish or use a large metal binder clip. I can sit very comfortably with everything on my lap this way, and have both hands free.

This little, light setup enables me to paint 11x17 without even having to cart an easel around with me! I put a weightless closed cell foam gardening cushion in my backpack and I can sit almost anywhere in comfort.

So, how did this work out in practice? It worked great! I've taken it out three or four times now, and have come away with a few conclusions:

1. The Lihit Pen Case is the perfect size for this kit. If it were any bigger, I'd be cramming it with more stuff that would be heavy and unnecessary for watercolor sketching. It fits the palette and exactly what I need to go with the palette. No more, no less.
2. I desperately need a squirrel mop brush for this kit, since this setup enables me to go large enough to make use of it. I'll have to buy one or two inexpensive ones to cut down because I am NOT butchering my Rekabs!
3. About half of the brushes I do have in here I won't need. I'm going to whittle down the assortment before I go out again.
4. Keeping the kneaded eraser in a plastic case is a pain in the neck and wastes time. I'm going to remove it from the case and stick it in with the brushes.

More Watercolor and Gouache Palette Talk

Many people have been asking me about this watercolor palette over the past couple of days. I have explained in a previous post what I did, but perhaps that got overlooked because I didn't provide a photo of the actual conversion (above). When I bought this palette, it came with twelve half pans, secured in metal holders. I hated the paints. I took out those paints, replaced the colors with my favorite tube colors, and over the years have reconfigured it many different ways.  If you're interested in one of these, I've found the palette alone for a very reasonable price at Wet Paint Art --- click here.

I really like the size of this palette. It's small and portable, even when the flaps are opened up, and not too heavy for a metal palette. If you look at the image below, you'll see that you can not only fit half pans into two rows, but if you use the middle section (which is meant to hold brushes), you can fit a third row in there too.

For a long time, that's the way I configured this palette --- with three rows of paints, like the image below:

 

When looking for a way to incorporate my gouache pigments in the same palette as my watercolors, I needed more space. I removed the metal plate and clips that hold the half pans in the case. By doing that, plus turning all the half pans so they ran horizontally, I could fit in another entire row of half pans! Using just the outer metal case and removing the inside dividers also lightened the palette considerably. I secured the half pans in the case using the white tacky putty you can get at Staples or in craft stores to hold posters onto walls.

In the first photo at the top of this post, the bottom row of paint is gouache. You can read more about my pigment choices and this setup on this post. Remember that if you put watercolor and gouache into the same palette, you have to be sure to keep them separate when you mix your colors! Allowing the gouache paints to migrate into the watercolor pans will diminish the transparency of your watercolors. I use the bottom metal flap to mix my gouache, and that leaves the top two, larger mixing areas for my watercolors. Since I generally go from transparent to opaque (if I go opaque at all), I use the entire palette for watercolors, then just the bottom for gouache near the end of the process. I clean off the bottom mixing area before using it again for watercolor.

May Ink Drop

11x17" across a two page spread in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon Hardbound sketchbook

De Atramentis Rose

De Atramentis Hyacinth

De Atramentis Elderberry

Diamine Meadow

and Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-Shikibu inks

Assorted dip pens

At the beginning of every month, five vials of ink samples arrive in my mailbox via the Goulet Pen Company Ink Drop. I don't always have time to test drive all of them right away, but this month I pulled them out and played with a bunch of dip pens to see what the colors looked like and how they washed with a wet brush. Every color was a winner, and I found myself surprised by how much I enjoyed working with the scented inks like the Rose and Hyacinth.

None of these inks are "archival" in terms of being able to hang a sketch on a wall where it would be exposed to sunlight. But they should fare fine inside a sketchbook as long as it's not dipped in water!

Nomadic PE-07 Pencil Pouch Review --- Peek inside my sketch kit!

Finally, here is my review of the Nomadic PE-07 Pencil Pouch, otherwise known as my lightweight sketch kit! I'm going to give you a peek inside to share what's traveling with me everywhere these days. I bought a Nomadic Messenger Bag quite some time ago and I use it so much that I thought I couldn't go wrong with some more of their products. The pouch comes in lots of nice colors, and I love red. The small zippered compartment in the front is a very convenient place to keep items that I need to reach for first --- like a pen, pencil and eraser. I can do my initial sketch without having to even open up the bag. If I decide to paint or use brush pens, I then proceed to the larger, inside compartment.

Above is a photo of the pouch from the side, so you can see some of the nifty dividers, with supplies in there too. (The pouch looks orange in this photo, but only the inside is orange.) I like having that thin, center section with the zipper. It gives me a safe place to store my Escoda travel brushes, where they can't fall out even if the bag tips while open. I took out the pen, mini watercolor set, and waterbrush to do the sketch above out on location. Removing the rest of the contents, you can see how much I'm able to fit into this clever little bag in the image below:

Inside the pouch is stashed a mini set of gouache as well as the watercolor set, a vial that I filled with Dr. Martin's Bleedproof White, my beloved Kaweco Lilliput fountain pen, a few water brushes, three Escoda travel brushes, one travel squirrel mop brush, a small travel sable with protective sleeve, a grey Pentel Aquash brush pen, a Kuretake refillable brush pen, architect pencil, little mouth/gum scrubber to scrub out paint, Mini Mister to spritz my palette or sketch, small container of water (little yellow bottle), palette cup, two metal office binder clips to hold down sketchbook pages, UniBall Vision rollerball pen, and small piece of eraser. Whew, that was a mouthful! Typing it all out, it's hard to believe that it all fit easily into the pouch. I have since added a piece of sponge in there as well, to wipe my brushes as I paint.

This pouch is so so well designed and constructed. It has just enough compartments and dividers for me to separate items into categories, without having so many that they take up needed space or make it hard to find what I'm looking for. It weighs nothing, is small enough to stash in my purse, and super-convenient to toss it into my backpack if I'm going hiking or traveling and need an ultra-light art kit. This and a sketchbook, and I'm good to go anywhere. I've already taken it on many hikes and outings. Like all art bags and sketch kits, it will continue to change and evolve, so I'll be sure to show it again in a year or so. It will be interesting to see how the contents have changed in that time.

So, is there anything negative about this bag? Well, initially I wished it was a bit larger. However, I'm now glad that it's not. One thing I've learned about myself over time is that no matter how big a sketching bag is, I know how to fill it to the brim, and I'm going to do that! Therefore, the secret for me to traveling light is to have a small bag that can only accommodate so much. In my dreams, I have a large, light bag. It contains everything I ever wanted, and there is plenty of room left over. But in reality, my bags are always packed to the brim with way more stuff than I could ever use in a single outing. Clearly the supplies in the photo above are more than ample for a sketch outing. One day last weekend, I forced myself to cut the contents in half, and I didn't find myself missing a thing when I went to sketch! So now I can honestly say that the pouch is perfect for its intended purpose. I love it. And it's mine. And I'm not giving it up. So if you want your own, you'll just have to hustle on over to JetPens and get one for yourself.

Big News from Stillman and Birn

Two page spread from a Stillman & Birn Beta prototype hardbound sketchbook

Watercolor, 6x18" (across the spread)

Click image if you'd like to see it larger

My dream has come true. Stillman and Birn has announced on their Facebook page that they will be expanding their lineup and producing hardbound sketchbooks with their extra heavy weight 180lb Beta and Delta paper. I think I've been waiting for this moment from the first time I ever opened up a sketchbook. For a multimedia artist who loves stitchbound books that open flat, this is a major event and game-changer!

The two page spread above was done in a 6x9" landscape format prototype with Beta paper. I worked across the spread to get the 18". The pages lie so flat that you can barely see the seams, and the paper is so heavy weight that there is no ghosting from images on the other side of the page. It's fabulous!

The books will be produced in the 5.5x8.5", 8.5x11", and European A4 size portrait formats, and not in this landscape 6x9" format shown above. Nevertheless, it has been a thrill to have a sneak peek and to be able to work in one of these babies, and to finally be able to share the good news. This Dogwood Blossoms sketch that I posted a few days ago was also done in this book. I now have my paws on prototypes of the 5.5x8.5" and 8.5x11" sizes, and cannot wait for a chance to dive in!

Dogwood Blossoms

Image can be clicked for a larger version

6x18" on Stillman & Birn Beta paper

Watercolor

My favorite way to work in watercolor is to Just Do It. No pencil lines (or just a few for compositional guidance), no ink......Just straight in directly with a brush and pigment, getting as much down in a single pass as possible. There's something very unique about the way watercolor glows and jumps off the page when it's not fussed with. About six months ago, I ditched the non-transparent colors in my watercolor palette, and found that also made a huge difference in getting the paint and paper to give each other their very best.

That's not to say that I don't need to occasionally bail myself out with opaque lights like Cadmium Yellow or even Titanium White, or that I don't enjoy working with opaque color at times too --- especially on a toned surface. I do. But in restructuring my palette over the past six months, I decided to use gouache for that purpose. After all, if you need to go opaque, that's the way to do it. I took one of the Schmincke palettes that comes with two rows of half pans, removed the metal plate, and squeezed five (yes, five!) rows of half pans into it. Three of those rows were watercolor, and two were gouache. You may recall the post I did about that palette not too long ago. Here's my color chart from that set, as of last week:

It gave me a lot to choose from, but it proved to be heavy for hiking in the mountains. So last week, I pulled out my old palette, which is this one:

 

I discovered that by removing the metal plate and turning the half pans sideways, I could fit a fourth row into that smaller palette, and it's a lot lighter too. It was hard deciding which colors would stay and which would go, but this is the configuration I eventually ended up with:

 Yep, I'm down to one row of gouache, and kept three rows of transparent watercolor pigments. The dogwood blossoms sketch was one of my test drives for this new setup. So far, it seems to be working, and I'm happy with the lighter weight. Of course, when I need to travel super-light, I can always resort to the mini set I posted yesterday.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that as artists, our ideas continue to change, evolve, and come back around. It's all part of the fun of exploring our world of materials. What we work with depends on what we're painting, what we're painting on, how much time we have, what we're able to carry, and where we're going. And of course as watercolor painters well know, one can never have too many palettes! ;)

I know I promised a tour of my little red sketch kit for today, but I realized I need to take one more photo and do the image adjustment before I can write that post. It will come soon though!

Willow Tree in the Front Yard and Lilliput Review

11x17" across a two page spread in an 8.5x11" Stillman & Birn Epsilon hardbound sketchbook

Ink and Watercolor

I've been admiring the character these willow trees on our property, and looking forward to an opportunity to get out and sketch them. Yesterday after dinner, I was finally able to give into that temptation and scoot outside for 20 minutes or so. I set my stool in front of this massive willow tree and took out my beloved Kaweco Lilliput fountain pen, which is filled with Platinum Carbon Black ink. I love this pen. When closed, it is teeny tiny and perfect for my small sketching kit. The cap screws onto the back, so it posts firmly, and becomes long enough to sketch comfortably. If you click that link above, you can see lots of different views of the pen with a penny for size reference. Below is a photo of it next to my new (ultra-cool and more about this soon) Uni Gel pencil, so you can get an idea of the size compared with a mechanical pencil. I think this photo actually makes it appear larger than it is though.

I'm a big fan of Kaweco fountain pens and have quite an assortment. They are smooth, wet writers and highly reliable. The plastic-barrel Kaweco Sport pens can be converted to eyedropper pens, but since the ink can corrode metal, the Lilliput model cannot be converted. It has other benefits though, like its compact size, and the way it slips into my small sketch bag like a long silver bullet. It never leaks. It always starts right up. It writes like a dream and can keep up with my quick sketching without skips. For a little pen to slip into a pocket or small pouch, it simply can't be beat.

You can see in the photo above that the Lilliput pen, when posted with the cap, is certainly an adequate size for writing and sketching. It is thinner than a regular fountain pen, though that doesn't bother me.

After drawing for awhile, I decided to entertain my inner color junkie, and pulled out my mini watercolor set. That and a waterbrush were all I needed to complete the large, two-page spread. These three items --- Lilliput, waterbrush, and mini pan set, could have fit into a pocket. The little watercolor set can be found at Wet Paint. I pop out the kids' paints and substitute with my artist grade tube colors. For this sketch, I used Winsor Newton French Ultramarine, Aureolin, Brown Madder, and Daniel Smith Quinacridone Gold.

Tomorrow I'll take you on a tour of the little red bag in the photo. It is host to the contents of my current "small sketch kit". I can toss that pouch into any bag or backpack and I'm ready to go on a sketch outing.

Up on Plattekill Mountain

 7.5x15", watercolor on Arches Rough

Text is Noodler's Kung Te-Cheng ink in a Platinum Preppy fountain pen

Back in December, I placed an order with Small Oak Press for two custom sketchbooks --- one to be made out of Arches Bright White Rough 140 pound paper, and the other of Stonehenge white. They were my holiday gift to myself, and they arrived last week. I took the Arches book out hiking over the weekend. I expected it to be difficult to dive into the first page spread of an $80 sketchbook, but when the time came, I found it surprisingly easy to let it happen. Perhaps I felt I deserved to paint on great rag paper after hiking two and a half miles uphill!

We hiked up Plattekill Mountain to Codfish Point. There was a stone throne that somebody made in an old quarry up there, facing Hudson Valley views that span 60 miles of the Hudson River off in the distance. It was the perfect spot for a weary painter to take a break, have lunch, and enjoy the vista. I pulled out my watercolors while my husband went off to take some photos and explore down the trail for a few minutes.

Afternoon in the Figure Studio

11x17" across the spread in an altered book

Golden Black Gesso

Winsor Newton, Holbein, and Schmincke Gouache

These poses were just 30 seconds to a few minutes each in an open studio life drawing session with a fabulous model. Since the poses are so short, I usually do them in some sort of a montage format. I had this page spread prepared in advance using Golden Black Gesso, and since I happened to have gouache and watercolor with me yesterday (thanks to my new palette setup), I thought it would be fun to play with different gouache colors on the black background. I loved the way it turned out, and my only regret was that I hadn't prepared more pages this way. I think I'm going to prepare some black supports with "glittery stuff" like I used for some of my aquarium sketches, and bring them to life drawing next week. Way fun!

(Sorry about the glare on the right page; I just couldn't seem to get an image without glare on one side or the other.)

Watercolor and Gouache are cohabitating in my palette!

Lexington Gray ink in a Lamy Safari fountain pen

Watercolor and Gouache

Stillman & Birn Epsilon 8.5x11" hardbound sketchbook

I finally found a way to set up my palette to fit watercolor and gouache together. I test drove it the other day and it worked fabulously well. A number of people have been asking me about this palette and how I did the reconfiguration, so here goes.....

I bought this palette online from Wet Paint Art Supply  in Minnesota. Apparently they are only made by special order, so Wet Paint ordered a bunch. Their customers liked them so much that they sold out almost immediately and ordered a lot more! The palette only comes with 12 colors (in two rows of six), with room for a third row of your own half pans and colors, for a total of 18. So, how did I transform this into something that will hold 32 half pans and one whole pan?

There is a metal plate with holders for the pans. It weighs a ton. I took that out. I fiddled with half pans in the empty space to see how many I could fit, and what the best configuration would be. I discovered that four rows of seven colors each would fit with the pans placed vertically,  but that I could squeeze in a fifth row if I had the pans run horizontally. In that last row, because of the curves on the corners of the palette, only five would fit. But I could fit a whole pan vertically in place of one of the half pans --- there was enough space to accommodate that. I am always needing extra white gouache when I'm painting with gouache, so I decided I'd keep my white in that one.

I took out a roll of adhesive magnetic strip. It comes rolled up like a roll of tape. I bought mine a long time ago and I don't remember what brand it was, but it looks something like this. I bought it in a craft store. I cut five strips that fit across the width of the palette. Since they were curled from being in the roll, I heated them with a hair dryer, which softened them a bit, and pressed them under a few very heavy coffee table books overnight. The next day, they were flat. With the adhesive side up (bare magnetic side down), I placed them in the palette, approximating where they would go.

I'd already decided which colors would go where the night before. I filled the pans that weren't already loaded, and wrote the names of the colors on each pan with a black fine point Sharpie. Starting with the top row, I peeled the paper strip off the magnet, revealing the adhesive, and stuck each pan down onto the adhesive strip, working across the row. I put in three rows of watercolor pigments (21 colors), then the 12 pans of gouache.

One thing about working watercolor and gouache together is that the opacity of the gouache, plus the chalkiness of white paint, can get into your transparent watercolor and destroy all that beautiful luminosity. This is why I always kept them in separate palettes. Since this metal palette has two sides, it keeps them separated easily. I'm used to having just two mixing areas for watercolor --- one for warm colors and one for cool. So the two sides of the top mixing area provide the wells I need. However, for gouache I need more areas, since I have to be able to mix value as well as color. All those little wells in the lower area are perfect for my gouache!

I was also able to eliminate the opaque watercolors from my palette. Usually I have cadmium red, a couple of cadmium yellows, cadmium orange, chromium oxide green, and a couple of other opaque watercolors in my watercolor palette. Now I can just substitute gouache when I need those, and keep all my watercolors transparent. That gives me an even larger color range than I had before.

I made the chart above so that I could keep track of what colors were in which pans, until I get to know my own system better. I also knew that initially, I'd be making some changes; that's why I numbered the pans on my sketch, instead of writing in color names. When I change a color, I can just change the name on the numbered list of pigments. I've already swapped out a few and shifted some around.

I've been looking for a way to do this for several years, but never found quite the right thing. This works for me at last!

Sketching from Norrie Point on the Hudson River

11x17" across a two page spread in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon hardbound book

Pitt Big Brush Pens

Image can be clicked for a larger, sharper view

I spent a long and productive day along the Hudson River on Tuesday, at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation site on Norrie Point in Staatsburg, New York. I did a couple of paintings first, and sat down to sketch at the end of the day. This cute little boat was docked right outside, so it became the most convenient subject after a day of painting atmosphere and nature. Boats are trickier than they look, so that makes them great practice subjects when sketching on the river.

I'm still really liking these Pitt Big Brush Pens, and the way they handle on this Epsilon paper by Stillman and Birn. I'd like to find a similar, lightfast type of brush pen/marker that has washable properties too, so I could take a waterbrush to it even after it's dry. Suggestions welcomed! (Must be lightfast!)

That's Life

Golden Black Gesso

Iridescent and Interference Acrylics

Krylon Gold Leafing Pen

Stillman & Birn 5.5x8.5" hardbound sketchbook

Just doodling, gold on black.

Golden Acrylic Neutral Grays

Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Neutral Grays, plus Black and Titanium White

Stillman and Birn 8.5x11" hardbound Epsilon Sketchbook

Those of you who have been following me for awhile have probably seen my setup for value studies in acrylic. I love doing monochrome studies this way. The Golden Paints Company makes it so easy; there's no color mixing --- just dip right into the value you want. It's been awhile since I did some of these value studies, so I pulled the container off the shelf figuring I'd clean it out, refill it, and put it to use, but the paint in it is still perfectly fine! That seal around the top of my container worked better than I thought it would. The binder and pigment separated a bit while sitting, but I sprayed in a little water, mixed it up again with a tongue depressor, and the set was good to go.

I was thinking of bringing it to open studio life drawing the next day. The longest poses in that session are only 20 minutes. I wasn't sure I could accomplish enough with acrylic paints in that time frame, and also wasn't sure I'd find the heavy body acrylics blendable enough for portraits and figures on paper. In keeping with my desire to brush up on portraiture, I decided to test drive the idea in my Epsilon sketchbook, working off an old black and white photograph of pianist Maria Teresa Carreno. She was a child prodigy who lived from 1853-1917.

As I thought, the paint didn't blend as well as I'd hoped on unprimed paper. Although I'm not necessarily unhappy with it as a study, it would have gone better with a primed surface and some of that delicious Golden AGL (Acrylic Glazing Liquid), which extends the drying time enough to blend a bit. I didn't use the AGL because I was thinking that in a sketchbook, extending the drying time might prove to be a bad idea when you need to turn the page to start the next pose, and I probably wouldn't want to bring my studio hair dryer into the life drawing session.

So, the next day, I brought traditional black and sepia dry drawing media with me to life drawing instead, and I totally bombed! I may as well have brought these after all and given it a go, so that's what I'm going to do next week. Maybe. Unless I change my mind! I think I'll give a few pages a coating of Golden Matte Medium so they won't be quite so absorbent, just in case I go through with this plan. 

Pitt Big Brush Pens and Some Quick Figures

This image is clickable if you wish to view an enlargement.

Quick figure sketches from photo references (The Figure in Motion)

Pitt Big Brush Pens: Dark Sepia, Raw Sienna, Light Flesh

Some blending done while wet, using Niji waterbrush

All images in this post were done in my altered book

When my order of Big Brush Pens arrived a few days ago, I did a color chart so I could see the actual colors on this paper. I set out some color groupings that I thought would work well together and provide me with at least three values. In anticipation of attending open studio life drawing the next day, I warmed up with some sketches from photo references --- easier than drawing from life, since the translation of three dimensions to two dimensions is already done for you by the camera! Still, going straight in with ink is always a challenge. I liked the way the colors worked for those sketches above, so I plan to keep that color grouping intact.

So, with at least one group of three markers that I know will work together, and some ideas for others, off we go to a session of short poses! I didn't photograph all the pages because it is such a time consuming process, but here are a few pages worth. These were all 20 minute poses, done from life. I sampled some of my other color groupings. After doing a few sketches, I did one with a more conventional drawing medium too --- a Sepia Cretacolor lead.

 

 Left: Pitt Big Brush Pens in Caput Mortuum, Sanguine, Cinnamon, Light Flesh

Center: Pitt Big Brush Pens in Indanthrene Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Sky Blue

Right: Sepia Cretacolor Lead, blended with a finger (and accidentally smudged by my hand!)

Pitt Big Brush Pens in Dark Sepia, Raw Sienna, and light flesh for the figure. Colors added in Deep Scarlet, Sky Blue, Ultramarine, Light Green for table and stool.

It's a tall order in short poses in life drawing to take on a medium that doesn't move much and can't be erased. But I enjoyed it, and I'm sure these Big Brush Pens will become part of my regular sketching materials for various subjects. I'm not sure if I'll be bringing the brush pens next time, or use something else; I have lots of ideas cooking in my brain. But it's always a fun time, and a great place to experiment with various approaches and mediums.

Pitt Big Brush Pens and Stillman and Birn Epsilon --- a match made in Heaven!

Pitt Warm Grey Big Brush Pens

Stillman & Birn Epsilon 8.5x11" hardbound sketchbook

I have a book of old photographs of great composers. It's in black and white, and every so often I break it open for some monochrome portrait practice while watching TV or listening to music. The other night, I decided to test drive my new Warm Grey Pitt Big Brush Pens on the silky-smooth paper of the Epsilon book. I spent about 45 minutes on this sketch of Italo Montemezzi using the photo reference. I totally fell in love with this combination of materials. I worked directly in ink, so that combined with the waterproof ink limited opportunities to blend values or make corrections. For sketching purposes I often prefer a direct approach with few changes, and I'm looking forward to working more with this combination of materials.

About the paper: The sizing on this paper lets the ink sit up on the surface. That means that it takes longer to dry, and with permanent ink, I think it's a huge benefit. I was able to move the ink around with a waterbrush or smear it with my finger if I did so quickly, so I had some blending capabilities until it set. I need to work with this combination more to learn to take better advantage of that, but I can see that it will be extremely useful. There was no bleed-through of the ink to the other side of the page, in spite of multiple coats of heavy application in some areas, and it is archival. The Epsilon paper is very smooth, allowing for easy detailing, and the brush pens move easily across the surface. I'm thinking that the points on the brush pens will be much better preserved on this type of surface than on a rougher, or even vellum texture. I absolutely loved working this size with the big brush pens. It's much more freeing than working in a smaller book with a finer point. So, I just might have to have two art journals going at the same time after all; I need to think more on this.

About the Pitt Big Brush Pens: Wow! I love these to bits! I've tried the Kuretake brush pens, Pentel brush pens, Aquash brush pens, Noodler's brush pens, and many others. These Pitt Big Brush Pens can cover so much more ground, have firmer tips with better spring, come to a nice sharp point for detail work. They put out enough ink to keep up with my sketching, are waterproof and archival, and available in 58 colors! I have not yet used them in combination with watercolors, but I have tried to budge the dry ink with a waterbrush and scrubbing with my finger to no avail. It's not going anywhere! I bought a lot of them to have working "sets" in various color groups, plus a few bright ones for those times when you need a strong spot of a bright color. I'll be showing some figure sketches tomorrow using a few different color combinations. This portrait was done with the four "Warm Grey" colors. The palette is shown on the page. I guess I could have added black to it also, but the Warm Grey V was so dark that even though I had the black out, I never used it.

Altered Book --- A Little Side Project

Quick boat studies

11x17" across a two page spread in my altered book

Although I prefer to work just in one main art journal at a time, there are sometimes reasons for turning to something else. In this case, I didn't want to burn through a lot of good, expensive paper for quick sketches and experiments. My plan was to use this other book for short poses in life drawing sessions, as well as quick practice sketches of one kind or another that I don't want to put into my art journal. I decided to take an old 8 1/2 x 11" book which still had a good, solid binding, and gesso pages to sketch on. That way it would be very inexpensive, and the gesso would soften the background text or images to increase depth while eliminating the visual distraction or competition with the sketches.The sketch above of the boats was done over one of the maps in the book. I thought it rather appropriate that they were sketched over oceans!

I selected a book with a lot of graphical content, as well as pages of full text. I used Golden Acrylic Gesso, and also tried some pages with Golden Absorbent Ground, as well as a couple with Golden Black Gesso just for fun. I thought the Absorbent Ground might provide a better working surface if I wanted to add any watercolor washes. The sketch above of the boats was done using Pitt Brush Pens on pages coated with the Golden Absorbent Ground. (Just because I liked the idea of doing them on the page spread with the map, and that happened to be prepared that way.)

I tested out my gouache and watercolor palettes to see how the colors would look on the surface of this paper with the Absorbent Ground. Answer: Pretty dull, though in person they have more vibrancy than they do in this digital image. Plus, it wrinkled the paper more than the Golden Acrylic Gesso. Speaking of which, if buckling paper bothers you, an altered book like this is probably not something that would interest you. Even pages coated with gesso did wrinkle. Of course, this paper was designed for printed text, and not for wet media! The gesso does add strength to the paper and gives it some sizing, but at the cost of some wrinkling. I dried each page spread with a hair dryer as I went along, then set it under a very heavy coffee table book overnight to help control some of the wrinkling.

On the left side above, you can see the ink from a sketch on the previous page coming through the paper a bit. That was a blank page, so I didn't coat it with anything on either side. Pages that were sized with either the Golden Acrylic Gesso or the Golden Absorbent Ground did not bleed through, nor show ghosting of images on the reverse side of the pages. (The wrinkling on that left hand page is just from the little bit of watercolor used in that one area of the previous page, and not from applying a sizing.)

Below, the page on the left was sized with the gesso. The page on the right was only sized in one area.  I left the more graphical page text that was printed on the right side. I thought I might use it as inspiration for some doodles, and I just kind of liked it! On several of the pages, I left bits of text, titles, or graphical elements without applying gesso over them.

I took the book to life drawing a couple of weeks ago. It was my first time going to an open studio session this winter, and go figure; the model didn't show! Some people from the group took turns doing three minute poses, and then everybody went home. These were a few of the three minute poses I did to test drive the book. I used a Wolff's 6B carbon pencil with a waterbrush, and added some light washes to a couple of the figures.

From time to time, I'll be showing some of my figure work or sketches done in this book, but for the most part, it's for short poses, quick sketches, doodles, border designs that I'm working out, testing ideas for fonts, and other things where I not only don't want to waste high quality paper, but for the most part, it's not even worth taking the time to photograph, adjust and post the images! However, in the interest of exposing other artists to the potential for using old books, I thought it was worth the post. I had initial pangs of guilt about "destroying" a book. But it wasn't too hard for me to convince myself that a book is not a one-of-a-kind work of art. In this age of reusing, repurposing, recycling, and reducing waste, creating sketchbooks from old books feels like a good thing to do. If you are opposed to using a book this way, consider doing it with a phone book or old catalog!

Golden Black Gesso and Sakura Gelly Roll Pens

This was so much fun! (Image can be clicked for a larger, clearer view.) I used Golden Black Gesso to coat a few page spreads in my Stillman & Birn 5.5x8..5" Epsilon hardbound sketchbook, drying each with a hair dryer before going on to the next. One coat of the Golden Black Gesso perfectly coated the paper. I did try a couple of different dilutions of it also, but it was best right out of the jar the way it came. It applied a thin, totally opaque covering of the paper with a single coat. I used an inexpensive foam brush.

Then I diluted some Golden Fluid Acrylic Interference paints in spray bottles, using a little airbrush medium, flow release and water, and spritzed each page spread with a couple of different colors, drying them again with the hairdryer. I did this in preparation for a sketching trip to the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk. They have a few very dark rooms with extremely interesting things and flourescent lighting, like jellyfish! This page in the book almost exactly mimics the dark, flourescent tank they were in. I grabbed a handful of Sakura Gelly Roll pens, purchased at a Jerrys store on my way to the Aquarium, and went to town with them.

The Gelly Roll pens worked fabulously on the gesso and the paper. They are very opaque, bright and smooth. I am going to get more!

Here's what the Sakura Gelly Roll pens that I got look like on black and on white. On the white paper, I brushed over the crosshatched sections with a waterbrush to see which ones will wash and which are waterproof.

That first sketch was fun, but it didn't give me exactly what I wanted. I turned to another black/interference page spread, and this time used gouache with some Gelly Roll pens over the top. I was much happier with this one!

This is something that I definitely want to spend more time exploring in the weeks to come!

Daniel Smith Watercolors and Palette Thoughts

New paints are so much fun! I got a bunch of colors from Daniel Smith last week --- some transparent yellows, as well as earthy reds and maroons. I also had to try their Blue Apatite and Moonglow, and Serpentine while I was at it!

I did some swatches and color comparision tests, and tried a few mixes, thinking about what might be effective for some new palette ideas I have.

I pulled out Craig Nelson's book, 60 Minutes to Better Painting. He has so many great ideas in there, and some interesting palettes too. I was admiring his analogous palette paintings and decided to put together a few analogous palettes to try out. I had some extra kids' watercolor sets that I'd popped the pigments out of. These tiny palettes are wonderful for trying new colors and ideas. I set three of them up as analogous palettes --- one red, one yellow, and one blue. That means that the entire painting should have that color in it, so for example, the blue analogous palette would have blue, a blue-green, a yellow-green, a bluish violet, and a reddish violet. The complement is used only to dull the colors, so although there would be an orange in the blue palette, it would be only for mixing purposes. Here are the three palettes and some test swatches I did:

The next day, I went to Adams Fairacre Farms in Wappinger NY. I decided to test drive the blue analogous palette in the greenhouse.

In the end, I couldn't resist adding the yellow flower centers, and I realized that an analogous palette is probably not the best choice for a flower garden or greenhouse! When I got home, I wanted to try it again, so I set up a still life and did a quick color study.

I'm afraid that for me, the jury is still out on this. Maybe I'm just not fond of all those cool colors, or maybe I like the pop of the complements too much for this limited approach. I haven't tried the red or yellow analogous palettes yet, but plan to do so soon. In the meantime, I'm going to let the color junkie in me have a little fun with some full color!

Note: The sketches above were done in a 5.5x8.5" Stillman and Birn Epsilon hardbound book. The color samples were done in an S&B Epsilon 8.5x11" hardbound book.

Little Juniper Bonsai

Click image for a larger, clearer view
Page was prepared with diluted acrylic paints--fluids and iridescent
Sketch Ink is Private Reserve Copper Burst in a Pilot Petit
Writing ink is Private Reserve Sepia and Noodler's Golden Brown
Sketchbook is a Stillman & Birn Epsilon, 5.5x8.5" hardbound

I was walking around the greenhouse at Adams Fairacre Farms in Wappinger, New York. As I rounded a corner, I noticed a little bonsai garden tucked away on one of the display tiers. I fell in love with this twisty little juniper bonsai. It made a perfect pen and ink subject. I definitely want to do more of these next time I go back there! I selected this teal page spread for it's greenish tones, and also because I felt this color ink would stand out so nicely against it. I just got a bottle of this Private Reserve Copper Burst, and it immediately became my favorite brown ink.

Copper Weathervanes at Adams Fairacre Farms and more glittery stuff

You can click this image for a larger, clearer view

Stillman & Birn Epsilon 5.5x8.5" Hardbound Sketchbook

Collage, ink, gesso, and acrylic background

Private Reserve Copper Burst ink in a Pilot Petit fountain pen

Noodler's Midnight Blue ink in a Kaweco Sport EF fountain pen

Watercolor

Schmincke Dry Copper Gouache

I have the most challenging time adjusting these iridescent images. The copper is really stunning, but in a photo it looks dull and brown without the shimmer of the light on it. If you can imagine the shimmer that you see in spots, spread throughout areas of the sketch, you'll have a better idea of how this looks in real life. The border and box shadow are copper iridescent acrylic, and there's a light coating on the multi-layered page background too. In fact, that background has eight layers of assorted media on it! If you click the image, you can see through parts of it to various background layers of patterned ink and shapes.

I was sketching at Adams Fairacre Farms in Wappinger, NY this past week. I had prepared several page spreads in advance, including this one with the copper background. When I walked by a display of large copper weather vanes, I knew I'd found the perfect subjects for those pages! Combined with my love of birds, it was irresistible! I sketched them with Private Reserve Copper Burst, added some Noodler's Midnight Blue for contrast, and blended/shaded a bit with a waterbrush.

I loved the Schmincke Reichgold Dry Gouache so much that a couple of weeks ago, I got three more jars of different colors:

This was a perfect opportunity to dip into the copper version, so I mixed up some of that after I got home, and added it to areas of the weathervanes, and painted the page title with it.