eller

A sketchbook page that turned out interesting enough to show, not least because of the new-to-me materials. :) The cracks in the wood looked pretty enough that I had to stop and draw them.

Efeu-auf-Baumstumpf-kl

Okay, the acrylic pens are not new. I use those all the time! Here, I used a combination of various brands (Liquitex, Amsterdam Acrylics, some others) and they're all awesome - I'm not picky with my sketching supplies as long as they work properly!

...which brings me to the Sennelier ink brush pens, which are new to me. I actually received them years and years ago (in some advent calendar, which is where I get most of the art supply surprises) but never touched them because of their reputation. Basically, they don't work properly - they blotch and leak all the time. Which makes them really fucking useless when it comes to sketchbook tours. No surprise here: I had exactly the experience that others before me described. There's ink coming out. All the fucking time. It's not stopping. If you pause painting even for ten seconds or so, there will be a drop of ink collecting at the tip. I wonder who designed this and who the fuck decided, "yes, this is a marketable product, let's launch it"... WTF?!?

But also, something happened that I really did not expect: I actually really like these ink brush pens. XD Yes, you read that right. They're actually a lot of fun to paint with, if you like a little bit of adrenaline in your life. It makes you work quickly and fill the page with color, and if you hesitate... You know what will happen... XD XD XD The colors themselves really are lovely! (I mainly used brown and a bit of dark green on this page of already brown-ish paper.) I love the brush tips, too - those are actually excellent quality, the right combination of soft and springy. These pens could be great if not for this one little drippy issue... I will never take them traveling again, though. I'm storing these pens tip up (!) in a jar on my desk because holding them tip up is really the only way to keep them from leaking.

Paper is the Hahnemühle Toned Watercolour book (in 14x14 cm, which is something like 5.5*x5.5''), another excellent product if you ignore one tiny issue - in this case, that it's fantastic as long as you avoid the watercolours. I really like to use it with my acrylic pens. :)

Another page in the sketchbook! This time, more contrasts in saturation than in hue or brightness... For the fun of it.

12-Jungfer-im-Gr-nen-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook from antaresnox; a "boring" white page today (hey, I have to use them at some point, right?)
- ballpoint pen (a normal one that writes in blue)
- Derwent Inktense pencil in Deep Indigo (this is, essentially, almost a watercolor pencil except that after drying the color becomes waterproof so you can add more layers over it - very useful)
- Acrylic pens: Amsterdam Acrylic Marker in Ultramarine and Yellowish Green; FlySea Acrylic Painter in white
- waterbrush

This was a drawing challenge: over at kakao-karten.de, there's a thread with weekly drawing challenges for one's sketchbook. This week, the task was to draw various objects that accompany you. Sure, I can do that! XD

drawing of everyday objects

Shown in this sketch:
One of my MANY MANY MANY puukkos. (Stacked birchbark handle with metal end caps; drop priofile, though that's not really visible from this perspective and at this level of scribbly-ness.)
One of my MANY MANY MANY travel watercolor boxes. (I refrained from adding paintbrushes, pencils, and pens - imagine my bag to contain a lot more art stuff than this! Also, yes, a watercolor box in monochrome looks kind of sad, but it couldn't be helped.)
One of my MANY MANY MANY travel chess sets. (No, I don't go anywhere without a chessboard. Not without chess pieces, either, but ~~I was simply too lazy to draw those~~ they would have distracted from the composition... Also, the wood of this set is actually much more reddish, but never mind.)
One of my MANY MANY MANY sketchbooks. (It's a new one that I received as a gift in my advent calendar from Taddi. Ironically, most of the art supplies I used to draw this picture - with the exception of the Liquitex marker and the book this sketch is in - are also from this advent calendar. It was a good opportunity to test the new art supplies!)

Not shown in this sketch:
The boring stuff. (Keys, wallet, feminine hygiene products, though in hindsight I almost regret not adding the latter.)

photo of art supplies

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook from antaresnox; a beige double page. (Yes, I deliberately used very thick black outlines and positioned the objects in a way to minimize the visual impact of the black bookbinding yarn... XD)
- Acrylic pens: Marabu YONO in black and white; Liquitex acrylic marker in Unbleached Titanium
- Glitter gel pens: Ohuhu Gel Ink Pen in gold and silver (on the knife)
- waterbrush (not in the photo)

The next (very very very) poisonous plant, I'm afraid. We have so many of those here. XD

09-Rizinus-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a red page (I'm using those up disproportionately) this time
- Acrylic pens: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in black and white; Amsterdam Acrylic Marker in Yellowish Green; Liquitex Acrylic Marker in Cadmium Red Deep Hue and Phthalocyanine Green blue shade; Uni Posca PC-5M in white
- waterbrush

Sunday afternoon in the park. :)

08-Blumenrohr-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a bright orange page (HELL YEAH) this time
- Acrylic pens: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in black and white; Amsterdam Acrylic Marker in Primary Yellow; Liquitex Acrylic Marker in Quinacridone Crimson
- waterbrush

Another page in the lovely chess sketchbook from antaresnox got filled today! I love oleander, it smells so nice. Of course, it is very poisonous, so even touching the stuff is a very bad idea, but... :D

07-Oleander-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a light pink page this time
- Acrylic pens: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in black and white; Amsterdam Acrylic Marker in Yellowish Green, Permanent Green Light, Permanent Red Violet Light, and Ultramarine; Uni Posca PC-5M in white
- waterbrush

This sketch is actually a collaboration with Mom, who had the picture idea and composition all in her head but didn't want to draw it all by herself, so instead, we sat down together at the kitchen table and she told me exactly what to draw. She also drew a few of the tree branches and the plants on the ground. It was fun! (Not a very tidy result, because we were drinking tea and chatting at the same time, but simply a fun family activity. Straight lines, what are straight lines? XD)

das-tor-kl

I had to start a new sketchbook, also bound by antaresnox, for this - the chess sketchbook has exclusively warm colors, but this picture asked for dark green paper. Fortunately, that package had many wonderful sketchbooks. I had promised pictures as soon as I start the other ones, so...

( Pictures of another really awesome bookbinding project behind the cut! )

Materials:
Awesome sketchbook; dark green page
Watercolor marker: Faber Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour Marker in Warm Grey III (this is literally the only watercolor marker I ever use; I don't like the medium otherwise)
Acrylic pens: Flysea Acrylic Painters in black and white, Amsterdam Acrylic Markers in Permanent Green Light and Yellowish Green, Liquitex Acrylic Markers in Raw Sienna and Raw Umber, Posca in white

Drew this at Planten un Blomen (a park in Hamburg). Unfortunately, the very tame bird came over as soon as it noticed me and begged for food. They do that...

06-Taube-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a grey page this time
- Fineliner: Faber Castell Multimark permanent, black, in F
- Marker: Faber Castell Pitt big brush in Cold Grey III
- Acrylic pen: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in white (in some places diluted with water and paintbrush)

No worries, this nice black-and-red locomotive is not in use anymore (I mean, you never know in Northern Germany, but... this is kind of old-fashioned even by local standards XD), it just... stands there as some kind of historical monument thingy. Also, nope, I can't draw technology, especially not when I have to be fast (there was nowhere to sit where I was sketching, and bright sunlight I was trying to avoid; indeed, I only did the black brush pen drawing there but had to do most of the shading and highlights later, at home) and I'm not doing a perspective sketch first. Flowers are easier - when you get a curve or the proportions slightly wrong, that's just nature, but you can't cheat like that with tech! XD I simplified quite a bit, too - only drew the largest shapes but left the smaller stuff out, though I don't doubt it's crucial for actually operating this machine. Hey, this is not supposed to be a technical blueprint... XD But, yeah, still having fun with that lovely chess sketchbook!

05-Lokomotive-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a red page again - I'm really enjoying this bright red paper!
- Markers: Faber Castell Pitt big brush in Black and Cold Grey III (they don't sell the latter anymore, which is tragic); Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen brush in White (which SUCKS; the other brush pens from this line are all awesome but the white one is super transparent and does not cover anything - I deliberately only used it for shading here, which is why I needed two different white pens)
- Acrylic pen: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in white (which you already know I love; despite being super-cheap it's my favorite white acrylic pen)

A very fast drawing today. I was busy playing a game of chess (online) and scribbled while thinking. :)

04-Springer-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a light brown page this time
- Fineliner: Staedtler pigment liner, black, 0.4
- Markers: Faber Castell Pitt artist pen brush in Raw umber and Warm Grey III
- Acrylic pen: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in white

Have a watermelon! It's summer (where I live, anyway), after all! XD

Skizze-03-kl

Completely with acrylic pens this time, partially diluted with water and paintbrush. The suuuper wide black acrylic pen was a gift from Emily Adams who sent me a very generous art supply care package (with some awesome things I still need to post!) a while ago. I like pens with wide tips, but drawing with this one (look at the picture...) turned out to be kind of extreme. XD Nothing wrong with it, though - it's a very nice pen, I just have to get used to it.

From a technical standpoint, the drawing was a failure: initially, I wanted to make this without any red paint, just the paper background color with white and black (and, obviously, green for the green parts), but it simply did not look right, so I had to use a red and a pink pen on the melon slice. Oh, and I learned the hard way that the paper doesn't like water - it buckled quite a bit. (So, no watercolor sketches in this book, I'm afraid...) I kind of like the end result, though: it's every bit as cliché-summery as intended.

Skizze-03-Material-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a red page again
- Acrylic pens: Marabu Art Painter in black, Uni Posca PC-5M in white, Amsterdam Acrylic Markers in Yellowish Green, Permanent Green Light, Pyrrole Red and Permanent Red Violet Light

Another fast sketch in the new chess sketchbook from antaresnox! This morning, I was walking when I saw this very large flower growing from a crack in the asphalt! (I kind of regret not getting that crack into the picture, but the plant was too large to draw the whole thing while getting any level of detail.) Different pens this time: the very professional (LOL) art technique is called "grab some pens from the bottom of your bag". I don't use markers very often but I really enjoy these ones: they each have two sides with shades of the same color, one dark and one light, which makes shading and blending easy.

In case you were wondering: yes, of course I occasionally sketch on white paper, too! You know I'm mainly whining about the constant lack of sketchbooks with toned paper that is not brown or grey, but that's not because I dislike white paper. It's just that I can walk into any art supply store (and even most stationery shops) and get a very nice sketchbook with white paper (not as nice as a handmade one, obviously, but at least one I can use); no whining needed. I really like having a book with different paper colors for different occasions!

This time, I actually managed to destroy the paper: it takes acrylic pens fine, it takes the markers themselves fine as well, but the spots where I used the white Posca to draw highlights over the marker-colored areas kind of dissolved. Interesting! XD (No matter how nice the paper, there's always some way to damage it, and I usually find it very quickly. LOL)

02-Alcea-kl

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a white page this time
- Copic Multiliner, black, 1.0
- Markers: Kuretake ZIG Brushables in spring green and hyacinth
- Acrylic pen: Uni Posca PC-5M in white

The first page in the new chess sketchbook bound by antaresnox! :D I saw these lovely dark red lilies by the side of the road and simply had to draw them. How very fortunate that the sketchbook contains some bright red drawing paper that's thick enough to work with acrylic markers, too! :D

01-Lilie-kl

Materials:
- the PHENOMENAL sketchbook I showed you all earlier; bright red page
- Copic Multiliner, black, 1.0
- Acrylic pens: Liquitex acrylic markers in Hooker's Green Hue Permanent and Cadmium Red Deep Hue, Amsterdam Acrylic Marker in Yellowish Green, Uni Posca PC-5M in white

...and I mean, shocking in a good way, but I was definitely shocked when I opened that package.

Like... Maybe you remember the lovely little handmade sketchbook that antaresnox had sent me? You remember how super happy I was? Well. They did it again. Only this time... uh.

antaresnox-01

Yeah. That's a HUGE PILE OF HANDMADE SKETCHBOOKS and I totally did not expect this. I mean, they had told me there's more where that first sketchbook came from, and asked me if I was interested (which, I mean, HELL YEAH), but I was thinking it would be, like, two or three maybe (which would already have been extremely generous, considering all the work that goes into something like this!) not... um... THIS.

It's a fascinating assortment of different papers, too - a lot of them have toned pages (which is my personal preference for sketching), but there are also some books with watercolor paper (including some papers I don't know yet but am very excited to try) and "normal" sketching paper for pencils or fineliners - in short, everything an artist needs! (I imagine this will actually keep me busy for a while...)

Now, there's a bit of a dilemma: of course, I want to SHOW OFF all those pretty sketchbooks, but I guess you guys don't want to look at sooo many pictures of paper all at once! XD So, uh, let's just start with the first of these books I'm going to use. (I will show the others in more detail when I get around to using them.) And, of course, I immediately grabbed the CHESS SKETCH BOOK WHEEEEEEEE!!!! ....ahem. Can you tell I'm excited about this?

antaresnox-02

Look at this! It's a button hole stitch binding, with a chess pawn as the button hole, and it's AWESOME!!!

antaresnox-03

Roughly postcard size (a bit smaller), toned paper in various colors inside, and I LOVE IT!!! (It's an extremely eller-y product - antaresnox knows my taste extremely well!) And the best thing is, antaresnox mentioned something about wanting to make the other 15 pieces as well, which... O_O Uh. I mean, I have no idea what I did to warrant that kind of effort, but, um, I'm hardly going to complain, right? XD It's in my bag now, so, I suppose you'll get to see a few sketches on toned paper in the next few days... (Yes, that was a threat.) I can already tell this is going to be soooo much fun! I always love handmade things, and the book lies completely flat when opened, which means it's going to be perfect for my purposes. Happy Eller is happy! :D

A few days ago, I got this set of ten lovely handmade watercolor dots (second picture in that post) from Nil - of course, I immediately had to try them out! So, yesterday, I used a watercolor sketchbook (near A5 size) that was a gift from Glitzermond (and, for that matter, fineliners I got from Risto) for the very pragmatic reason that it has a plastic folder in the back where I can safely store the dot card with the paints.

So, uh, this is a place in Hamburg, near Beim Schlump. Not one of the important sights, merely one of the old pretty houses - some of those are left. What else was I going to do with an earth tone palette but paint some yellow and red clinker, right? XDD

2024-04-Beim-Schlump-kl

Okay, okay, I never draw architecture, and there's a reason for that. F*ck perspective, f*ck straight lines... XD But, I mean, it was fun. It's very different from what I usually do, and I typically don't use colors that are not psychedelic levels of bright, either. It was an interesting experience (and everything shimmers, because clearly, the world needs glittering earth tones.) The paints are actually very good, it's just that I'm not used to these pigments.

A page in a black sketchbook that was a gift from CaitlynMurphy. In case you're wondering why I work with art supplies I got from other people so often: I'm such a ridiculous level of 'social learner' I'm not just more motivated but literally learn more art when the stuff I'm using has some connection to another human being. So, sending stuff back and forth it is. XD (I'm not actually gaining anything financially because I also send stuff to others. I'm learning to draw better this way, though. Buying the same sketchbook for myself would be useless.)

In this case, the white Posca blotched. Badly. I used the large ink blots to create large sunlit areas so it looks kinda-sorta intentional. (I hope.) XDD

Another page filled in the sketchbook from antaresnox. I'm trying to draw something fast every day. The forsythia is in front of the house... And, of course, rhododendron is everywhere.

It's kind of fascinating: rhododendron is an invasive plant, and when I was a kid, people started to plant it in their gardens deliberately "because the bugs don't eat it". This used to be true, except, oh wait, these days they do... I suppose we're seeing some evolution in progress. XD

Continuing in the little sketchbook from antaresnox.

I filled a blue double page with magnolias. Various black fineliners, Faber Castell PITT brush pen in "sky blue", white Pentel gel pen. :)

So, a few weeks ago, I received a wonderful handmade sketchbook from antaresnox, and I just (finally) got around to testing it!

Isn't it lovely? It's tiny (7x7 cm, which is a bit under 3x3'') and has colored pages in pink, yellow, green, and blue. YAY! I love drawing on colored paper!

( More pictures, including the art supplies, behind the cut! )

Here are proper scans of my first two sketches, fuchsia (on a pink page) and aconitum (on a blue page). I used fineliners (Staedtler in 0.1 and Faber castell PITT in M), markers (Faber Castell PITT pen B in sky blue, pink madder lake, and light phthalo green), and a white gel pen (Pentel).

I already adore this little book! :D

Not very inspired, but hey.

2022-05-unbekannt-Grashalm-kl

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Entries tagged with sketchbook

Ivy on tree stump. Sketchbook page.

Nigella

Everyday Companions

Ricinus

Canna

Oleander sketch

the gate

Pigeon

Locomotive

knight scribble

Watermelon

Alcea

Lily in the new chess sketchbook :)

Shocking mail from antaresnox O_O

Hamburg sketch

Daffodil Accident

Forsythia and rhododendron

Magnolia sketch

Handmade sketchbook from antaresnox

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