Buttnekkiddoodles

Monday, May 30th, I got up at 5:30 AM so that I could be downtown at the Palette & Chisel by 7 AM to partake in the Annual 12 hour life drawing marathon. The P & C holds 3 such events a year, Labor Day, New Year’s Day, and Memorial Day. I made it wire to wire and turned out 24 pages. Except for the far right drawing at the top, most of the drawings were done in 15-25 minutes.  I’ll spare you most of the quick warm-ups.

The last drawing is a relaxed portrait of the events’ organizer and longtime member of the P&C, Historian, Musicologist, Bloggerista, itinerant social commentator, keeper of the feral mane upon his head, and bon vivant…..Chris Miller. You can read transcription of his spontaneous ululations and bons mots on his blog, This Old Palette. A link to which is provided on my landing page.

The drawings were executed in a Utrecht toned sketchbook and a Veterinarian’s Ledger from 1959 with the same line up of tools that I’ve been hauling around with me for a spell. Pitt Artist Brush Pens, various fountain pens, and the ink for those pens, Platinum Carbon, and Iroshizuku.

The day yielded mixed results. I started off promising, foundered a bit and concluded with a few drawings I liked. I sure lost focus there on a number of poses. For certain, it wasn’t my day for likenesses. And true to form I went AWOL on the legs. I was trying to pay more attention to boxing the pelvic area and had a great view of the reclining pose, middle column fourth row down, but went ham handed and lost the grace and supple power of the model.

Ah Lord, HATS. Hats bedevil me. Getting the drawings to feel like the hat sits on a solid globe, that a noggin is really shoved into one. Like hairdos, that amount to more than spaghetti slapped up against the page. Most of the Prussian Blue colored drawings are done with a fountain pen using Noodler’s Kingfisher Blue, the black drawings on ledger paper are drawn with a Visconti fountain pen using Platinum Carbon Ink. The colored drawings are my old reliable Pitt Artist Pens. The top 6 rows were drawn in a Veterinarian’s Daily Record ledger book from 1959. The ivory colored paper in row 7, column 1 & 3 and the 3 drawings in row 8 were drawn in a Quo Vadis Note 27 daily planner which has the creamy smooth Clairefontaine paper that also has good blocking ability. Fairly important as I draw on both sides. The clay colored paper in the lower rows are from a Utrecht sketchbook with recycled acid free paper.

Getting caught up on posting drawings from the last 4 months. Most of these were drawn at the Palette & Chisel in Chicago, however, the drawings on toned paper of Amanda were drawn at Trapeze studios in Seattle. All drawn with the usual suspects, India ink, Pitt Artist Brush Pens, fountain pens, China Marker for the white highlights. The pink drawing of Jessie is done in Iroshizuku Yama Budo fountain ink. The toned paper is from a recycled, acid free sketch book by Utrecht. And the drawings in the date book are Clairefontain paper in a Quo Vadis planner.

I renewed an interest in fountain pens perhaps a year and a half ago and have been drawing with them about 50% of the time. My first flirtation with them some 25 years ago was discouraging because I didn’t understand their mechanics, and improper care, combined with the wrong ink, bollocksed up a few pens. After trashing a semi-expensive Pelikan I moved on. But I always thought they had an elegance to them and had seen fountain pen script that produced an interesting line. Capable of lines both thicker and thinner than ballpoint, they also produced a wetter, thinner flow that could vary in tonal density from the start to the finish of a line or flourish. There was a noticeable “pooling” of pigment when the speed of the pen stroke slowed significantly or as the nib would come to a full stop. And while they seldom had the flexibility of the tines in a dip pen such as a Copperplate nib, some of the stub nibs had directional variance in line width and by virtue of an ink reservoir called a cartridge or a converter, the fountain pen had the distinct advantage of not being tethered to a bottle of ink. As you may have gathered at this website, I like to draw on buses.

Since it is also evident that I like to draw in previously used ledger books, I was always encountering numbers and script done in various medium. After looking at what was evidently fountain pen ink, I decided to give it another go. One frequent visitor to BND, who had been complimentary in past viewings expressed unvarnished disdain for my use of the fountain pen. Apparently tormented as a youth in school by the required tool, they had no love for the boring line produced by this writing instrument. I’ll note here that I got similar responses 35 years ago when I traded in my pencils and charcoal for a ballpoint. And having tried all the beasts on the shelves in art & craft & writing stores I often found myself struggling with an instrument I hadn’t mastered or by it’s very nature was ill suited to sketchbooks and ledger books. Often, that was the point. To see what would come of a new tool and to take some of the control and predictable flourish away from my hand. So just as I contend there are no bad poses, I don’t like blame coming to exclusive rest with the materials. Attributes can be found in unsuspecting places if you’re alert, no? A ballpoint that bled like a stuck pig and would most likely find itself in a waste basket, gave me a wide and juicy line as distinct from the brittle line produced by the well behaved accountants’ Bic fine point.

The very watery nature that is integral with fountain ink allows me to dab it while still wet and stamp ambient marks and smear the ink to get swaths and hazes that expand the vocabulary of the tool’s signature.

Returned from touring the eastern side of the Hudson River Valley. Went out to Stockbridge, Mass. again to give a workshop at the Norman Rockwell Museum, where I copied the saddle shoes above,  and managed a side trip to see Frederick Edwin Church’s estate near Hudson, NY called, Olana. Head swelling view from the property. Took a tour of the way ornate mansion  and saw a few sweet little paintings he did amoungst all the Orientalistic foo faw.

Knocked out the landscape in the middle and had to head down state about 2 hours to see a friend before it got dark. The day was spectacular and I lament that I didn’t have the time to make a drawing of the view from all sides of the mansion. Churh wrote that, “about an hour south of Hudson lies the center of the world, and I own it”.

Just thought I’d throw up an assortment of noggin drawings from life. Some are aware they’re being drawn, most are just doin’ their thing whilst I do mine.