A Trip to an Iris Garden - with friends!

This year I went to sketch at Nola's Iris Garden with a plan to paint irises. I brought with me a backpack full of materials that I put together thinking about my list experiments (and not about irises), and I was joined by two friends who created some amazing art - here are two posts by Suhita Shirodkar: gouache and watercolor and watercolor and ink (and pencil? :). And here is a link to a pastel piece by Jennifer Gaskin. 

Apart from an amazing range of irises I had a great time looking at inquisitive cows, watching a hummingbird take a bath, and following all sorts of mad killdeer activities (I think there was a nest near the place where we were painting - hence we witnessed a whole array of professional attempts at discouraging us from being there. The poor distressed bird was running around us, calling in different tones, pretending that it had an injured wing, running away, flying erratically etc.). 

I got a couple of first sketches out and then went to my list of experiments and tried about 1/2 of them. My idea was to to use different materials to find an illusive textured line feeling that I am after as well as a combination of background and foreground textures and opaque/transparent feeling. But it all meant that I spread my attention over too many things and was able to finish only one sketch (and a half)  - the rest came home to be added to a pile "try and make something out of it" :) 

My Secret to Using Dip Pen On Location

No matter how many fountain pens I have or try, eventually, I go back to a dip pen - at least for some time. But traveling with a dip pen and using it on location is quite tricky - mostly because of potential ink spills. Over the years I tried several different techniques and this one seems to be my personal top runner:

I use an empty eye drops container, wash it, and fill it with ink. Then I apply ink (a drop or two) directly on the nib of my dip pen - and draw. If there is extra ink on my pen - a touch of the tip of the nib to the hole gets extra ink back into the bottle. With this setup I can draw pretty quickly (even while standing): I hold my tiny bottle in the same hand as my sketchbook and squeeze ink one drop at a time. In some cases, I've drawn with the tip of the bottle itself - or used found objects to use as a pen - all because the ink was available in this convenient way. 

This week I realized that one of my ink bottles stopped working properly as plastic aged and got too rigid - so I no longer could get one or two drops - it is "nothing or gushing" - so I got a new (quite soft) bottle and moved ink into it - here are some photos of the process - click on the image to see it larger.

On My Table: Beginning of May 2025.

May is here, and with it, we arrived at the season for painting bearded irises! I just finished my Sketchbook #159 with a trip to an Iris Garden and am hoping to add some irises to a new Sketchbook #160 too - it will be Stillman &Burn Alpha 8"x10" in soft cover. I will make a video about the completed sketchbook soon. 

I am enjoying lots of experiments right now and will write about some of them if they get to something interesting. At the turn of this month, my limited pencil palette included 5 pencils and a waterbrush filled with blue-gray ink. Pencils are:

1. Prismacolor Dark Purple (931)

2. Caran D Ache Luminance Payenes Gray 30% (504)

3. Prismacolor Rosy Beige (1019)

4. Caran D Ache Supracolor II Soft Brownish Orange (3888)

5. Holbein Jaune Brilliant (122)

The ink mixture was created by washing two bottles of ink that I emptied when refilling my pens so there is no recipe :) But it means that I will be getting some new ink soon! 

Drawing People: 32 portraits of people I've never met in real life.

Lots of people sketching is happening these days. I will write about them one by one - today I share a bunch of faces from an online portrait party that happens every week on zoom: Pencils4Tea - hosted by a wonderful artist Kirsty Lockhart - it is happening on Thursdays 6-7pm UK time and is a free and a very friendly place where each portrait is timed by a song. One of the things I realized when I looked back at 2024 was that my "listening life" was a bit dormant so I am trying to remedy that this year since Pencils4Tea has a Spotify playlist it became a good source of inspiration! Kristi also started a pencils4tea substack - check it out! 

A Beautiful Bouquet - a series of experiments.

I recently got a beautiful bouquet to enjoy and sketch - looking at the same subject many times, in the course of several days is something I highly recommend to anyone - especially to someone who sketches. It was glorious when permeated by the morning sun and illuminated in the evening rays. And it inspired some experiments!