On My Table: Beginning of September 2026

September found me with several sketching experiments happening at once. Some inspired by ideas for new workshops, some by the markers I recently got (thank you Arrtx for sending me two sets to play with!), and some inspired by an ongoing conversation about limiting the number of tools I carry in my backpack (it is heavy!), and some CMYK brushpens I've been playing on and off.

In addition to that, I learned that my white Uniball Signo pen can be brought to life after refusing to write (I will draw the exact process in my sketchbook today!), and my craft knife needs new blades urgently. I've been using stretchy electric tape to track which markers I use most. And I have picked 2 lovely colors from Ukrainian Watercolor manufacturer Rosa to include in my experiments this month. All that will show in blog posts very soon! 

Odds and Ends from Sketchbook #147

This is a mixture of odds and ends from the recent sketchbook - little notes, page overlays, and such. I use semi-transparent sheets of tracing paper or vellum to protect pages and often get too carried away by the paper and add drawings on them too - you can learn more about why I do this and how in a series of posts Layers in my sketchbooks. And some of these were done with the CMYK pens experiments.

My Magnolia Seed Pod Collection

As I mentioned before I picked up a nice collection of magnolia seed pods after the storm and decided that I will draw them all one by one. Slowly but surely all got into my sketchbook through some burst with berries before that happened and others got a little moldy :) 

Some were tiny sketches, some were done with my pentel CMYK brushes, and some were experiments with the texture and ink application (I am collecting a whole bunch of things to choose from for the upcoming "deck of textures" workshop). Others were made with unusual surfaces (though this is lost in the scan so you can never tell) - except if you get to flip through this sketchbook :)

Plants update in gouache, printmaking and CMYK.

I got some new plants recently and this is a quick update on them - though since I sketched these there was some development and some leaves were lost. But I am working on figuring out why this happened and sketching all that fell, all that it left - basically, all.

All three of these are made with different tools that I am enjoying working with: some printmaking with stencils and collages, some gouache with spattering and lettering dome with flex nib dipped in gouache, and my CMYK pens. 

 

Orange spread in my sketchbook

Orange is one of my favorite colors. This, in addition to the fact that some of my favorite fruits are orange in color, means that this time of the year my sketchbook has lots of orange in it. This was an orange spread and some additional orange sketches sprinkled through my sketchbook: persimmons and tangerines (or mandarins?)! (oranges and carrots are next ;)

I painted these as large silhouettes with black ink and pentel pocket brush and then used gouache to add color, with some pencil over for additional tiny marks.

And these are some close-ups and details of more persimmons and tangerines - mostly painted with me CMYK pens (pentel pocket brushes filled with colorful inks:)

Persimmons and CMYK experiments with Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

The persimmon season is here and I attack the fruit with my brushes and pens as much as I do with my teeth! Below are some that I scanned already - but there is one sketch I would like to start with:

This image is made with the experimental technique that both Suhita Shirodkar and I are playing with. A limited palette of primary colors (pigmented Higgins inks - Carmine Red, Yellow, and Blue) filled in a pre-cleaned partridge of the pentel pocket brush pens. Plus the standard black cartridge.  

These are water-proof, pretty flat colors that are lovely in little quantities on a page filled with other things but might bore you to death on large surfaces. However, if you add some dynamics with water sprayed on the page, wet mixing, with the dilution of inks, overlaying colors, and using them with pointillism technique varying patterns and brushstrokes - the results are a lot of fun! 

I encourage you to look at what Suhita is making here: More on that triad of inks

Right now I dilute both blue and red - the current proportion is 40% ink, and 60% water but I think I will go to 30:70 on the next refill. Also, I am going to make purple and, possibly, orange pens as stand-alone tools - but continue playing with the CMYK separately. The illustration of these adventures are not scanned yet - so here are some persimmons done with acrylic markers, watercolors, and ink.