Stylii

Regular readers of Monochromatic Outlook may recall mention of the Waterman Edson Diamond Black fountain pen. It was the pen I wanted dearly but thought I would never own because it was indeed too dear. At a MSRP of an even thousand dollars, its lovely platinum trim and inset nib seemed out of my reach.

I had a chance to write with one at the Flax pen fair, and its smooth writing cemented its place as the pen that I really must have. Pen collectors have a name for such a desirable and unattainable item: they call it one's «grail» pen.

On Fountain Pen Network there is a topic started by the user watch_art (also known as the printmaker Shawn Newton) who called for drawings of coffee mugs. The one rule he stated was that the drawing be done with each person's favorite pen.

Today is the 125th anniversary of the patent granted to Lewis Edson Waterman for his capillary feed for fountain pens, which turned fountain pens from a gimmicky novelty used by only a few into the true replacement for the steel pen and the quill.

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/308.html

Some of you have seen this finished piece, but as I'm opening up my in-progress scans for public consumption, this is one that grabs me for a couple of different reasons. First, I'm very proud that the first layer of hatching was all arcs to suggest the shape of the pen. Having that down first helped me move forward with a sense of dimension that I don't always have when I'm putting layer over layer of crossing lines down on paper.

The Edson/Aurora piece is one where I really pushed my limits. There are aspects to the finished drawing that I honestly did not think I could pull off. The arced hatching was the first of these where my first thought was «no way, that's not going to happen.»

At this stage, I'm not necessarily done with the nib, but I've progressed far enough to be really cautious about doing any more that I already have. It's time for me to turn my attentions to other areas. The end of the section is going to take a lot of ink, and I'm starting to have to get real serious about finalizing my composition. I have the basics in mind, but I'm weighing out some decisions and solutions that are non-obvious. Non-obvious to me, anyhow. Moving to another area of the drawing will help to clear out some of the questions. In this way, sometimes a drawing really just does grow over time.

Here you can see the beginnings of the pen in the background. Although it's very faint some lettering is visible in the lower right of this piece. One of the problems I've not yet resolved is how to go about the lettering and signature. The others from this series all have the name of the pen model, date and signature. I'm thinking about doing something a little larger than I have with the others, especially since the focus of the pen itself is so much bigger than the others. None of the approaches I've tried has worked for me yet, so I keep on playing with it. Eventually I'll settle on a treatment.

Jumping ahead several layers, now there's more tone and the appearance of contour. The nib of the pen still needs more contrast to make it look shiny. By now, I've stopped using the 0.13mm pen exclusively and have begun making some layers with the 0.18mm pen.

There are two issues with continuing to use the finer pen. First is the fact that the more ink goes down on the page, the less blank space there is be darkened by the pen. After going over an area a few times and hatching with the 0.13mm pen, subsequent layers do less to darken the area, because a greater portion of each penstroke covers over area that's already black with ink.

These are now pasted into my sketchbook, but are not actually sketchbook work, but drafts. I've mentioned this before, but often what I do when I'm not certain how to proceed with a drawing is to place vellum over the pencil drawing and take different approaches at rendering the section in ink. Sometimes these come out as almost fully-realized drawings and other times I'll work only on one the area of the drawing. Sometimes I'll rough out some ideas crudely and other times I'll spend hours trying an approach complicated enough that I'd rather do it twice and like it than once and realize I don't.

Here you can see that after additional layers the hatching begins to take on a smoother appearance. I'm deepening up some areas to give shape, but it's a process that will have to develop over time. The blown-out highlight areas still look like painted-on stripes and there's little reflective detail, but you can see where it's going. The main surface of the nib still has only two layers of hatching.

Here's a pen from my sketchbook, drawn at least partially with a brush. It's a lousy photo, but basically I'm still at work as midnight approaches. I made a commitment to post a drawing every day, so at 11:59pm a digital photo of an old pen from my sketchbook will have to do!

This is how I got started with the series of pen and ink drawings of pens and ink bottles. I'm not even sure what it was at first that intrigued me, but it's not that difficult to figure out. I love my pens and these were good exercises in texture and reflection with a variety of surfaces. There were challenges with these drawings, but they are sketchbook pieces, so I didn't want to take them too seriously.

My sketchbook is not just a place for me to experiment, it is also a place where I apply a lot of critical judgment. I can see my mistakes and my tendency toward certain kinds of mistakes very clearly in sketchbook work, whereas when I'm building an image as part of a series, I'll do everything I can to hide my mistakes. The problems I see in my «finished» work tend to be individual problems rather than problems that are part of any recurring pattern.

Then, too, is the question of how successfully I blind myself to my own artistic shortcomings. I'm sure that there are troubles in my more polished pieces that are apparent to others but which I have no awareness of. There's a lot less ego tied up in sketchbook pieces, and so it is easier for me to have perspective about the strengths, failures, and other qualities of such drawings.