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.

I have a secret way to watch painting classes.

I am a big fan of taking classes - there is an absurd number of them on my radar, I start many, finish some but I recently realized that there is a secret that helps me get more out of the learning. 

And that secret is: going back and watching the video without commentary. By cutting audio out of what I am focusing on I can notice the movements of the brush on the page, patterns of brushstrokes, and see as the painting comes together in phases. It gives me a different perspective.  

I got this way of watching videos from working with kids. No matter how much you prepare your instructions, how you plan the class, kids can listen to you talk only so much and they move at their own speed. But DOING will get them GOING. When you work with them side by side - the dynamic changes. That is when you can sync with them when they pick up your little tricks and use them in their way, on their projects or modify in some new and interesting ways and then you learn from them.  

So this week I was super excited about taking the latest of many classes from Shari Blaukopf.

It is called "Luminous Colour for Sketchers" and it is exactly that - an amazing opportunity to learn about making your watercolor sketches sing with light. And this class builds on her wonderful book "The Urban Sketching Handbook Working with Color" that came out almost two years ago. 

Shari is showing in detail how much water and how much paint goes into each mixture and how she makes colors luminous by mixing them on the page. There are many close-ups where you can see details very clearly (images below are screenshots from one of the class videos).

With Shari's class on my second pass, I slowed down the video, turned audio off, and tried to predict which area the brush will go to next, think about what I would do, and compare it to what she does.

I watched this class as if I was a kid - mimicking what is going on on the screen/page, mocking with my own interpretations, running ahead, then slowing down. I imagined that it is me making those color decisions and moving brush. 

And it was a lot of fun!

Three tricks I use when I work with Ackerman Pen (tuning and minimizing ink spills)

I love flex nib pens and having a portable option was always an interesting idea for me. I got my first Ackerman pen in 2008 and had a long and complicated yet wonderful relationship with it that ended abruptly when I tried to get fix it with plyers. 

I got another pen in 2016 and enjoyed it quite a bit until I got too tired of having inky fingers.

Naturally, I kept the pen in rotation (I have a whole system of doing it) but somehow this particular pen was  being overlooked (it was easy because I keep it in a separate ziplock bag with a paper towel inside - because it... well it used to leak) and with time the nib got glued to the body of the pen and to the overfeed by the dry ink. Pretty soon I saw that I would need a proper cleaning/rescue operation to make it work again and I never could find time for that. Both the quarantine and enthusiasm of friends who were playing with their pens helped me to find my way back to this wonderful (and somewhat temperamental) instrument. 

I would like to document what I learned both for my future self and to see if this might help someone to  make it work better.

My pen is Manga G Pump Pen with an overfeed. 

1. When my pen was stuck and gunk glued the nib and to the body of the pen nothing seemed to work - no soaking, waiting - nothing. That is when the $2 solution from Goulet pens - a simple rubber grip - saved the day. Here is a picture and a short video of how I use it:

2. When my pen was leaking a lot I experimented with how far the nib and overfeed are extending from the body of the pen - it is a friction fit and the rubber grip helped me aligning the parts with greater precision. As a result, I know pretty well where my nib and overfeed should sit - notice on the photo below how the hole in the overfeed is aligned, and how much of the nib is covered by the overfeed. This helped with extra spillage of the ink a lot. And it is something I adjust almost daily because it slips and some inks are more slippery than others.

3. The third trick is about taking the cap off the pen. I knew about it before but forgot. There is a tiny hole in the cap which is covered by the metal clip. You need to have it open when you put the cap on and when you put the cap off. But keep it covered while you are not using the pen. If you forget to move the clip aside and this tiny hole is covered it would create enough suction to get half of the ink from a fully inked pen out. And that is a mess that makes me keep this pen in a ziplock bag with a paper towel inside. Because of course I regularly forget to turn the clip. 

Sketchbook #115: Trip to Europe - Part I - Ukraine/People

Amid perpetual fight with the sleepiness and endless food consumption (everyone tried to feed us in Ukraine), I tried to draw various family members at their everyday tasks.  I have a "life hack" or trick for the cases when I know that my capacity to make good decisions would be limited (examples would include jet lag, an abundance of people talking to me simultaneously or a very emotionally charged situation). I carry a very simple, the most limited sketch kit possible (though any sketching kit would do - ballpoint pen and napkin saved me many times but an 18 pan watercolor set also worked) - and pull it out as soon as I can and start making marks on the page without judgment or thinking.  No thinking is the key. And then I keep adding things - as you would continue dancing - the best you can. When the page is filled - move to the next one without breaking a stride. 

Badger Log #10 (2017)