Quick Botanical Sketches

May 18, 2021 horsenettle No Comments

Categories: Art Ink Pen

Tags: art, botanical, fountain pen, nova, pen, stillman and birn

New Sketchbooks, New Pen

May 10, 2021 horsenettle No Comments

I started a little 3.5”x5” Stillman and Birn Nova with gray-toned paper. It’s perfect for plein air botanical sketches. Art supply-wise, I traveled light for our three-hour hike yesterday, only bringing this sketchbook, a fountain pen, and a white gel pen for these quick studies.

I’ve also started a new, larger Strathmore 500 Mixed Media sketchbook. It has a warm color paper, and it seems to handle all the various mediums I use: ink, washes, graphite, colored pencil, etc.

This pheasant was running alongside the road and I snapped several pictures, Inktense pencils

I struggled with this silverpoint sketch. I first primed the page so the metal would “stick.” It looks like a rough draft at this point.

And here’s a fountain pen sketch, a quick test of my new (birthday) pen, a Sailor Realo with a Zoom nib, an amazing pen.

Categories: Art Ink Pen Pencil

Tags: colored pencil, fountain pen, pen, silverpoint, stillman and birn, strathmore

Sketchbook Tour

March 24, 2021 horsenettle No Comments

I didn’t set out to use only fountain pens and ink in this sketchbook, but that’s what I ended up doing. The fountain pens were mostly Twsbi Go’s with medium nibs. The ink was primarily the permanent and lightfast de Atramentis Document Ink, but I used some samples of other water soluble inks for fun.

Filling a sketchbook is nothing new, but I approached this with a goal of planning each drawing. It was a rewarding experiment, and I’d gladly do it again.