What happens when I don’t pencil first

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.

Well, I’m not real­ly sure which pen is my favorite, but I know which foun­tain pens I’ve most enjoyed draw­ing with so I opened up my sketch­book and set myself up with my Philz Cof­fee trav­el mug which is cer­tain­ly my most-used mug if only because its lid screws on so tight­ly I can put the mug in my mes­sen­ger bag and ride across town with cof­fee ready to drink when I arrive.

I con­sid­ered lay­ing down pen­cil marks first, but on con­sid­er­a­tion I decid­ed that I could use the prac­tice putting pen marks down with­out putting erasable guides on the paper first. It also seemed fit­ting not to use a pen­cil since it is for a chal­lenge from Foun­tain Pen Net­work. The result would be a foun­tain pen drawing.

I end­ed up using three pens to avoid chang­ing inks in one pen, and one brush:

• Rhodi­um Nami­ki Bam­boo with Noodler’s Old Man­hat­tan Black ink from Foun­tain Pen Hos­pi­tal in New York
• Omas Emot­i­ca with Noodler’s Niki­ta Red ink
• Rotring Riv­ette (or Cal­li­graph, I’m not sure) with J Herbin Lie de Thé ink
• Kaimei nat­ur­al-bris­tle brush­pen (ink from pro­vid­ed cartridge)

Con­clu­sion: I need to do this more often.