Drawing at a Rally in Support For Ukraine

Another protest, another rally for Ukraine. Drawing in San Francisco on Sunday, while a very one-sided 28-point plan for peace is hanging in the air. So-called peace plan demands Ukraine give up territory (including not currently occupied), limits the size of its army, and agrees not to pursue russia for the war crimes. Nobody wants this war to end as the Ukrainians do. But this has to be a lasting solution made with Ukraine and not dictated by anyone! 

Visiting a Magical Forest

Every year, Suhita Shirodkar and I make a pilgrimage to the Santa Cruz Mountains to see our friends in a wonderful community surrounding Gay Kraeger. And to draw an astonishing view of glowing persimmon trees. This time, the period between our last visit and this one was so packed with events for everyone that we ended up coming two weeks in a row to cover all the stories, share new materials, plans, and projects! One day was gloriously sunny, and we had a chance to draw persimmon trees, and another was magnificently foggy - so we ended up trying all sorts of art toys in a cozy, warm studio with a cup of tea while fog slowly melted around redwoods, which we drew. Click on the images to see larger version!

A New Chisel Pen I Tried

I am a big fan of drawing tools - and some version of a chisel pen is almost always in my tool kit. (for example, my latest travel sketching kit had one, and I missed having another). So when I saw that a new type of chisel tip pen appeared on the market, I had to try it - especially since it came in 4 different widths and several colors!

This pen is made in the EU, and is called "Manuscript Callicreative Italic Markers" and the nibs are:

Fine Point (1.4 mm)

Medium Point (2.5 mm)

Broad Point (3.6 mm)

Extra Broad Point (4.8 mm)

Below is a page from my sketchbook where I wrote my impressions. I got only black color, but did not read the description well enough to see that it is not waterproof ink. Which is a lot of fun by itself - if you are planning for it! 

The range of widths is a welcome thing for me compared to chisel nibs from Faber-Castell. But because of the way the pen is built, I was having a hard time placing the nib intuitively - and had to look at the page more often. The barrel is a little too slippery for me - in a photo below you will see that I put some tape to remedy that. But the ink is flowing generously and is really lovely, solid black, and you can move it quite a bit - especially if the paper has good sizing. And if it does not have any - the pen is almost waterproof!

You know November is Here When...

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Fall is a slow-moving season, and everyone navigates it differently. For me, when I see some maple trees worth sketching (they come before the Chinese Pistaches that put fire in the neighborhood and before ginkos that make you wish for 100 different shades of yellow pencils), and when you draw your first persimmons of the season, the fall is really here! 

Trip to The East Coast - Part 5: Materials After Returning

As I mentioned in my original materials post for this trip, I did my best to note what I was missing during the trip, what I used most, and what I did not touch at all, and here are some results:

1. This was a very short trip, so this amount of gouache was enough, but if I were traveling for a longer time, I would definitely take some tubes to both refill my palette and also to have access, for some "just out of the tube" thick paint that is needed, at the finishing touches, often. I had five different blues so I was fine - but yellows were 

2. I really enjoyed my first-ever posca pencil (ivory) - it was doing a really good job covering over other materials.

3. Little gouache sticks are amazing - I wish they were more widely spread - but access to this instant color with the possibility of texture is for me a difference between starting a sketch or not - if I feel like I do not have enough time. 

4. I missed yellow. I have a favorite yellow marker at the moment, it is semi-transparent and layers over other colors in such a luminous way that I can use it with just one other color and still call it a full-color sketch. 

5. I missed some purple. I had a violet-gray from Luminance but needed something brighter. And I missed some brown, which I tried to figure out at the end of my sketchbooks, going over all the browns I could find, but I did not pinpoint what exactly was missing. This is something to remember for the next time: to write a little more about the color that I am missing - brown is not enough! After all, when I am teaching, I always ask people to use at least 3, between 4 and 5 words to describe color - why didn't I do it myself and just scribbled "missing brown"?

6. I missed my Pilot Parallel pen - I had a great substitute (zig calligraphy), but this beauty is capable of making such an expressive line that the sheer prospect of seeing it glide on the page can be a motivation enough for me to take a little sketching break. I guess rule number one of packing for a trip is "take your favorite tool" :) 

here are some color-swatching pages on which I was trying to figure out what exact color I was missing:

Trip to The East Coast 2025:
Part 1: Packing My Sketch Tools
Part 2: People, Bids, Animals and Apples
Part 3: Landscapes
Part 4: More Landscapes
Part 5: What Materials worked and what I missed
Video of the Sketchbook Flip-Through.