Buttnekkiddoodles

 

A couple weeks ago my dear pal Alexandria and I felt a need for a visit in these isolating times, so, we each masked up and met for a 3 hour visit at Calvary Cemetery.
Calvary is a modest size cemetery which sits between Chicago and Evanston along the shore of Lake Michigan. It’s very open being flat and not forested with minimal trees and plantings. It is quite pleasant, very bright and enjoys the benefit of the lake’s breeze.
Alex and I brought chairs and I proceeded to sketch her as she surfed the net while we talked of how we were coping with the extraordinary times.
I worked on a Stillman & Birn Nova Series Beige sketchbook. The warm tinted Pages provide a great tonal base allowing a selective use of a brighter value by adding white as I did here with a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pen. The page has just enough tooth that when I dragged or rubbed an inky finger across the surface I was able to emulate the surface and look of the tombstone behind Alex. Yes, those are my fingerprints which when inky create a perfect look of pine needles and grass.
Tools included a Graf von Faber-Castell Chevron fountain pen filled with DeAtramentis Document Black Ink, Pitt Artist Pens of various grays and nib sizes and the S&B sketchbook mentioned above. #Stillmanandbirn #fabercastellusa

 

I’m no Nina Johansson but I will occasionally brave cold weather for a drawing. Both of these were drawn in Evanston. The second drawing from the top was lakeside on the Northwestern Univ. campus. The following drawings were done at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston.

 

In addition to pitt Pens, I used a Sailor Brush Nib fountain pen, a terrific tool which yields a wide variety of marks and line widths depending on the angle it is held as you draw on the page. Threw in a few details as the wide format of the drawings made for less than crisp images. Below are the Wilmette locks.