It's been a while

It's been a while since I've been here, and in the mean time, not only another year has ended, and a new one begun, but spring is almost upon us as well. Not that it feels much like it at the moment. It's the coldest it's been this winter, -6 degrees Celsius max yesterday, and today it0s snowing like mad. It's not that I haven't done anything in these past three months. I've been working through a couple of online classes, doing some lunchtime sketching at work, but none of it particularly share-worthy. And my energy level has been about as low as the temperature at the moment, making it a struggle to pick up a pen at all in the evenings and at the weekends. But hopefully, things will pick up again soon now.

At the weekend in any case, I felt inspired to pick up my (new) pen for a quick pre-lunch sketch, before the pepper and courgette went into my curry.

I've started a little illustrated recipes book almost four years ago, but haven't added a lot of recipes. I don't like to cook. I only cook because I want to know what's in my food and don't want to eat processed and ready meals. I don't enjoy it, so cooking has to be quick and easy, something to get over and done with so that I can spend the rest of the time doing something I actually enjoy. Because I'm such an uninspired cook, I usually don't know what to cook. And that's why I've started this book. So that I have a number of quick and easy recipe ideas at hand. And while I don't enjoy the cooking itself, at least I had some fun drawing the recipe. I first started cooking this delicious Thai Yellow Curry a few months ago, and when I cooked it this Sunday, I realised that I had forgotten to buy a tomato, and I couldn't remember how much fish sauce went into it - was it one table spoon or one tea spoon? So I decided to spend the afternoon adding the basic recipe to my little book. Hopefully, more recipes will follow soon.

In January, N and I spent a lovely holiday together here in Switzerland. Lots of relaxing and going for walks in the area, but of course we also had to go on a day trip to the mountains for my birthday. This time we decided to head to the canton of Wallis, to Zermatt. From there we took the train up to Gornergrat at 3100m. There isn't really much you can do up there in winter, if you're not skiing, but it was a quite mild day with lots of snow, sunshine and a deep blue, cloudless sky, and so we ended up spending about 4 hours up there anyway. The views all around were absolutely spectacular. 29 mountains over 4000m, the Monte Rosa massif with Switzerland's highest peak, the Dufourspitze (4634m), the alps second largest glacier, the Gorner Glacier, and a few more, and of course the star of them all - Switzerland's most iconic mountain, the Matterhorn.

Matterhorn from up Gornergrat

Monte Rosa Glacier and Border Glacier with Dufourspitze

What else? After I stopped going to Swedish classes a year ago, I wanted to learn something new and I found this fun app Duolingo. For the past few months, I've been doing my (almost) daily lessons (they only take about 5-10 minutes) and I can now say that Ik spreek een beetje Nederlands. Well, I guess it's a bit of an exaggeration, it really is only a tiny number of (not always very useful) sentences. It will definitely be quite a while until I can read my copy of Jip en Jannecke. Until then, I just look at the beautiful illustrations by Fiep Westendorp. But it's great fun anyway.

And then here's a film I want to go and see at the cinema - Ex Libris: The New York Public Library. Hopefully one day I'll have the chance to actually visit the library itself, but until then, this films looks like well worth watching. And as a librarian, I guess it is a bit of a must :)

Inktober 2017 - The End * and a bit about inks and nibs

This post is long overdue, the end of November is already in sight! I must admit that the air went out completely for the last couple of days of Inktober. But I wanted to fill this sketchbook, and in the end I did. Here's the last two drawings.

I enjoyed drawing every day. Well, most of the time. It can be difficult to fit in time for drawing during the week when you have a day job. I am constantly trying to do some drawing in my lunch breaks, and while I think it's a lot better to draw for only five minutes a day than not at all, I also find drawing for only five minutes a bit frustrating at times. I'd prefer to spend a bit more time on drawing.

During Inktober, I planned my evenings to fit in an hour or so of drawing. That is a habit I really wish to take away from this challenge, even though I have already sorely neglected it this month...
What I can definitely do without, though, is having to scan, edit and post the drawing every day. When everything worked out and the drawing turned out alright, it was fine. But when it didn't, it became stressful. There have been days when I spent more than an hour altogether on one drawing that just didn't work out only to then make a five minute one afterwards to post.

What I really liked about the challenge was the focus on a particular medium. It made me try out all kinds of different inks and nibs, and I really enjoyed drawing with dip pens. I got my old nibs and inks out, and bought some new ones too.

My favourite inks are the Rohrer & Klingner Ausziehtusche (Drawing ink). I especially like the bistre. The Zeichentusche (Calligraphy ink) is nice too, and comes in a great variety of colours. All of them are water proof.

Sennelier inks are lovely too. Their India ink, or China ink, as it's called, is a nice deep black. The colour ones have a glossy sheen if applied thicker.  There's some very nice shades of browns, including bistre and burnt sienna, which are very different from the R&K shades of the same name.

I like the Winsor & Newton India ink, but I'm not a great fan of their coloured ones, to be honest. I only bought the two browns, peat brown and nut brown, and I have to say, I can't really see the difference. Maybe as a wash, but certainly not in a line. I used them with a paint brush as a wash, and it didn't really work that well either. For me, they are just too transparent.

There are so many nibs that it can get a bit confusing. Even more so to identify them (a magnifying glass is very helpful here!) and remember which one's which once you put them in a pen holder. I looked for both drawing and mapping nibs, and I discovered that although some seem to be from different manufacturers, they are actually the same. The 'Manuscript' nibs I bought in England turned out to be the same as the 'Standardgraph' nibs I got here in Switzerland - they are both 'Leonardt' nibs.

To make things easier, I made two reference sheets, one for inks and one for nibs, which I glued into my studio journal. While there's a great variety of beautiful pen holders for the larger nibs, unfortunately for the smaller ones, there seems to be only one - a simple red wooden one. As many of the drawing nibs are the smaller ones, you quickly end up with a whole bunch of almost identical looking pens. I used Washi tape to distinguish them so that from now on, I know exactly which nib is which. Hopefully, this will help me use them a lot more from now on.

I also went through all the nibs I already had at home, tried each and every one out and threw away the ones that didn't work form me. Among the keepers are these specialty nibs: the George W. Hughes Redonda pen that gives a double line, and the two Speedball Steelbrush nibs that are great for lettering.

Inktober 2017 - Week Four

We are nearing the end of the month, and with it, the end Inktober challenge. Only a couple more days to go. I'm not complaining when it's over, this week, it really is becoming a bit of a struggle now.

Day 22: Dip pen & ink

Day 23: Ink

Day 24: Brush pen, pen

Day 25: Fude pen

Day 26: Fude nib fountain pen

Day 27 & 28: Dip pen & ink

Thoughts and insights:

• Our brain and how it works is absolutely fascinating. And slightly scary...
• Drawing with dip pen and ink is so different than with pens. Somehow it makes you draw differently. And it certainly looks differently. Or is that just because of the ink?
• The same colour can look completely different from one manufaturer to another. Just look at Rohrer & Klingner's and Senneliers bistre. Both are nice colours, though
• It's useful to make some sort of ink colour charts for reference
• It's also useful to find a system to remember which nib is which...
• It's becoming a bit of a struggle now. 

Inktober 2017 - Week Three

It's the third week of Inktober and I'm still keeping my daily drawing habit up. In fact, it's becoming easier, and more and more day, I'm looking forward to the evening, when I can sit down and draw.

Day 15: Dip pen & ink

Day 16: Fineliner pens

Day 17: Pens

Day 18: Dip pen & ink

Day 19: Pens

Day 20:

Day 21: Dip pen & ink

Thoughts and insights:

• Did I mention that I love dip pens?
• Crosshatching is a bit like watercolour - it looks easy and simple, but it's not
• I wish I was better at drawing from imagination and didn't have to rely on reference images
• But then I guess that's part of trying to get into the daily drawing habit
• Because of copyright reasons, it can be really difficult to find reference images for some subjects
• Some drawings therefore just have to remain practice pieces only, without being shared
• But then, not everything always needs to be shared
• It's all about practice in the end
• And about enjoying it

Inktober 2017 - Week Two

Another week of daily drawing.

Day 8: Pen

Day 9: Dip pen and ink, and pens

Day 10: Pen

Day 11: Dip pen & ink

Day 12: Dip pen & ink

Day 13: Dip pen & ink

Day 14: Dip pen & ink

Thoughts and insights:

•  I figured out how to change the setting on my scanner so that it now scans the entire page. Yay!
• Stippling is so much fun with a dip pen!
• Inks are so versatile, you can use them for drawing, washes and even mix them together
• I love dip pens!
• So many different nibs! I'm going through the ones I have, adding ones, and throwing out the ones that don't work for me. No point hanging on to them. I only want what works
• An excuse to go to the art shop :)
• Drawing every day is good, but finishing and posting a drawing every day is quite stressful.
• But I'm not giving up
• Done is better than perfect

Inktober 2017 - Week One

I'm taking part in the Inktober challenge this year, for the first time. It's been around for a few years, and I've wanted to do it before, but something's always come in between. Usually holidays. Which, of course, is a nice thing, like last year, when I spent the first week of October in art retreat in Scotland (I can't believe that that was already a year ago!), and the second relaxing in lovely Dorset. But this year, there's nothing on in October, my holiday is already over, and it's high time to get back into a regular drawing habit.

I decided to start a new sketchbook for the challenge. I went through my (far too big) stack of new sketchbooks and found a Strathmore one, about A5 size, with thick mixed media paper that should take bottled ink and ink washes, and with enough pages for 31 double spread, should I decided to do that. To prepare for the challenge, I did a warm up page on the last day of September.

Front/Warm up page: Pens

Day 1: Pens

Day 2: Dip pens, brush, inks

Day 3: Pen

Day 4: Brushpens

Day 5: Dip pen and ink

Day 6: Dip pen and ink

Day 7: Dip pen, ink, pen

Some thoughts on the first week:

• It's good to try out something completely different
• Sometimes it takes a LOT longer than you thought it might, and it's perfectly okay if you don't finish it in time
• Some inks just don't work very well on (certain) paper. It's worth taking a bit of time to try out what works and what doesn't
• Bottled fountain pen inks make lovely washes
• Even if it looks like rubbish at one stage, don't give up but keep working until it starts coming together. It usually does
• Some days, it just doesn't work, and that's fine. Just splash some ink on a page play around instead
• Dip pens are great to draw with, it's fun trying out the different nibs and inks
•  Finishing a drawing, then scanning and posting it every day is had work, and sometimes it might just be too much
• My scanner is driving me mad, it tries to scan individual images instead of just the entire page, and I don't know how to change that
• The most important thing is to draw, and to have fun

A little face-a-day challenge

I've been wanting to do a little face-a-day challenge for ages, but then always somehow forgot about it. But then, last week, after drawing a quick face in my sketchbook in my lunch break at work, I decided to start it there and then. At least one face a day, for about a month, until December 22, which is when N will be coming, and the last day before my 2 weeks' Christmas holiday.

What better way to use all those pens and pencils in your pencil case, really get to know those pens you've been carrying around with you and never really use. I ordered a Sailor calligraphy pen a while ago, one of those fountain pens with a bent nib, and I'm really enjoying it. It was about time I started using it! Different mediums, different styles - just playing around, filling your sketchbook pages and getting lots of practice.

And last but not least...

This week, December 1 - 7, is Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week.
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease are the two main forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), chronic conditions where the immune system attacks the bowels. It can have devastating effects on people's lives, and for most, it means lifelong medication and recurrent phases of pain and other effects, as well as having to cope with shame and lack of understanding attached to an invisible illness that affects the taboo digestive system. The number of people being diagnosed with IBD is rising, among them more and more children, and so far, there is no cure for it.

Finished sketchbooks and some daily drawing

I'm a bit in a strange mood at the moment. I get easily annoyed and grumpy, and I just want to get home and have my peace and quiet. The weather isn't helping much either. For the past few weeks, it's been a constant mix of a few days of blazing hot temperatures followed by a few days of cooler weather with lots of rain. Both of which I'm not particularly fond of. I'm not feeling much like blogging, or even switching on my computer in the evening. I just want to watch tv and draw. The drawing bit, at least, is a good thing. And since I got a few pages filled in my sketchbook, I thought I'd might give it a try and put it all into a blog post after all.

I finished my sketchbooks last weekend, glueing on the covers and backs. I decided to restitch the one where I messed up the stitch, as it wasn't as tight as thought after all. I don't like the glueing part at all, but I do like how they turned out.

Thanks to the coptic stitch, they lie nice and flat on the table.

Two of the sketchbooks have 210g/qm paper, and two have 300g/qm, both Fabriano Disegno 5. I haven't used this paper before, but it's a watercolour paper, and not quite as expensive as the Artistico. They didn't have the smooth surface, so these have a bit of a tooth. I'm looking forward to see how it is to paint on it.

So far, I have only painted the colour charts of the two watercolour boxes I'm using at the moment in one of the sketchbooks. This is the one for which I used an old map for the covers. It's a map of an area in Sweden, and I'm thinking about taking it with me on my trip to Stockholm next month.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a quick drawing of my tea cup in the morning, and I got so annoyed with how it turned out. Such a simple shape, really, and yet, that oval shape just seems to be the most difficult thing to draw. It looked like a drawing of someone who had just drawn something for the first time in their life. So I decided to draw my tea cup every day for 2 weeks to try and get that shape into my hand. I missed a couple of days, but then on others, I drew more than one, so that's okay. I quite enjoyed drawing the different cups and using different pens, and discovering some tins of tea at the back of the cupboard that I haven't used in ages, like the "Hexenkräuter" (witch's herbs) tea, which is so delicious. The three women I quickly drew from a little table at the window in one of the buildings on the campus, a nice and quiet spot that I've been using a lot in my lunch breaks these past few weeks.

I also started a new Moleskine sketchbook, for lettering practice, and general drawing and doodling, and for all the pens that don't work in my Hahnemühle sketchbook. I meant to add some text to these bananas, but I haven't got round to it yet. But it's maybe a good thing I'm posting it now, as I might mess it up completely. Getting both the lettering AND the spelling right seems quite impossible at the moment.

I read this quote, or something like it, a few months back on the façade of a building here in town, and thought it was funny. And it was the only thing I could come up with for the prompt of a daily photography challenge this month. I forgot to post it in that group, actually, and I'm generally not doing a very good job with keeping up with the challenge. But I enjoyed the lettering. And sometimes I do manage to get the spelling right.

I went to a concert with my Mum last Tuesday. Well, actually, it wasn't a concert but an opera. Carmen. It was a sort of "half opera". It was in the old concert hall in the city, with the orchestra in its usual place in the middle and the choir behind. It did had all the characters too, and they were all dressed in beautiful Spanish costumes (gorgeous swooshy skirts), but it just didn't have the usual opera décor. It was very nice, but of course I had "one of those people" sitting in front of me. I didn't have my sketchbook with me, but I had the page already in my head, so I made sure to memorise the shape of her head, low hairline and very long neck.

I'm so glad it's Friday, and the weekend ahead. Peace and quiet and lots of time to myself. And at the moment, I'm especially looking forward to Friday evenings, as that means that I get to spend an hour with the Goethals. The Goethals are five sisters in the Belgian tv series The Out-Laws (Clan), one of which is married to Jean-Claude "De Kloot" (The Prick), an exceptionally nasty piece of work, whom the other four sister try to get rid of. He's such an unpleasant man that you just wish every time that their clever plans succeed at last, but he seems to have more lives than the proverbial cat. And then, ad the end of the episode, you are glad, after all, that he did get away yet again, because that means that there'll be another episode next week. It's hilarious, and just the thing you need when you're having a bit of a grumpy phase. 

A very happy and cheerful weekend to you!