Studio Progress
It’s been a while since I provided a peek at what’s going on at my drawing table. There are a couple reasons for that: first that I’ve been working more on the luxographic prints, which requires a lot of work on the files at home. Second, and on an hour-by-hour basis probably the bigger reason, I’ve been having to pick up the income slack with more hours of Website development. Fortunately the hours are there for me when I need them, but I haven’t spent a lot of time in the studio in the last couple weeks.
Today the Moto Guzzi is in the shop, and the shop is within walking distance of the studio, so it provided a perfect excuse to take a day in the studio. I picked up this drawing, which I had roughed out quite some time ago. This is the first of the «Pens & Inks» series, or it would have been had I finished it already.
The Visconti bottles are beautiful, if a bit unwieldy for common use nowadays. The design of the bottle makes it easy to get at the last bit of ink in the bottle, but also makes it very easy to tip the thing right over. I think the design is made to be used at a desk with an inkwell. And the last time I saw a desk with an inkwell (except maybe in a Levenger catalog) was fourth grade at the latest. Still, it’s a thing of beauty and very nice if you can remember to keep the cap on the bottle.
The pen shown is Rotring Millennium Edition 1999. Rotring put out five Millennium Edition pens starting with 1996 and counting up to 2000. There were 6000 of these 1999 pens made, which makes them somewhat uncommon, but by no means rare. The long handle of the ArtPen is reminiscent of dip pens, so this pen and the Visconti bottle which wants an inkwell seem to be a natural match. Today I tightened up the pencils. While that’s not finished, I’m not too far from being able to go in with ink. I intend to incorporate Visconti Brown in the drawing along with black ink. And I’ll provide further updates as they come.
