Flirting with pens

This week my Inktober aim was to continue getting to grips with my Platinum maki-e brush pen. I do love the expressive lines I can get from it, and reach for it quite often, but have not yet achieved the practice I need to get total control over my line variations.

Sunday was boat yard day- we had to put epoxy primer onto the stripped-back hull, then get the first layers of bottom paint on within a few hours. That meant a break in between coats- as the weather tried to decide whether or not to pour down and ruin our hard work. There was a Beaver seaplane at the shipyard for repairs on some of the brackets for its pontoons. Perfect material for a sketch break- as a cold wind blustered and rain spat down. Even De Atramentis Document ink gets blotched if the rain falls as it's being applied, and the flapping pages did nothing to help my line work.  Note to self- learn to carry clips to hold my sketchbook open! Despite making my sketching uncomfortable, the weather held off enough that we could get more coats done. Now Island Prism's bottom is done and she is one step closer to getting in the water!

It was only Week 2 of term but between boat work, teaching and house pack up I felt knackered! Drawing didn't happen on Monday- a lovely friend gave me a bunch of poppies as a perk up because I was looking so tired. I left the flowers at school on Monday but took them home on Tuesday- they were the perfect inspiration pick-me-up! I cheated on my poor brush pen though, and grabbed my Lamy Safari. It's still got Lamy ink in it, which smudges when I add a wash. I do like the effect that the running ink adds to the watercolour, though most people just assume it's gone wrong! Sometimes it's fun to look at things differently. 

On Wednesday I tried the poppies again- this time with the brush pen (after apologising to it for the double dating). I used some of my Noodlers sample inks to colour the flowers- Navajo Turquoise, Apache Sunset, Yellow and Army Green. I do love Noodlers' names, and love the shading I got from the turquoise and orange! 

For the weekend, we went up to see our friends in Ngunguru. They are very tolerant when I sit there trying to sketch their guinea pigs (who were quite shy), or drew horses at the beach (my gesture drawings were not fast enough to adequately capture their flying visit, so I tried adding an ink wash later to improve the page!). However, I have to confess to swinging wildly between pens. Sorry, brush pen!

Alas, poor ink brush! It did not get the week of glory and relationship building that it deserved. Lazing in the sun on Kowharewa beach, I reached for the fineliners first. It does not mean our relationship is over- oh no- but maybe I'm just not meant to go steady with just one pen. Though I must be a bit of a flirt if I can't even manage one week! And sometimes, on a glorious sun-drenched afternoon at Kowharewa Bay, you just need to get down all the details. 

(If this seems like a low-output sketch week, I have also been working on transferring some of my watercolours into digital form. I wrote about the process on my earlier blog post at www.andreaengland.net/blog/playing_with_lionfish - and you can see some of my new  watercolour sea creature designs at Redbubble!