Off to London!

This sketchy sockbird will keep an eye on the blog while I am away.

I hope to visit Cass Art again, this time to buy some Windsor & Newton Series 7 brushes. I’ve been planning to buy some for several years and I now feel that I have earned it since I have practiced and perfected my technique with the one series 7 brush I own. I am also going to Cornelissen, hopefully to get ahold of a proper lumpe sanguine and perhaps also silverpoint equipment. I plan to draw at both the British Museum and Natural History Musem. We’re also visiting Pollock’s Toy Museum, another place where I hope to make a lot of drawings and drolleries. A visit to Kew is planned as well, as always. A small cactus I bought at Kew a couple of years ago perished in the move, so I hope to find something to add to my plant collection.

Speaking of plant collections, I bought a nano terrarium yesterday. I plan to grow small orchids, mosses, ferns and gesneriads there. Pics upcoming. Also, I made cold process soap. Yep, I do have a lot of time on my hands at the moment!

Read Full Post »

Drollery in its natural habitat

Here is the drollery from the previous post, but in its natural habitat. I really like doing long, complicated lists and decorating them.

I really like the hanging dragon in the bottom of the picture. As you can see, this is reminiscent of the background art of the blog. I have some plans on making another complicated, detailed work of art with pen and ink, but this time with fountain pens in A3 (background was made with fiber-tipped pens in A4).

When I get my next job I think I am going to sponsor myself with a modified Namiki Falcon XXF (spencerian modification) from Richard Binder. I’d like to see what I can make with that kind of instrument. I am planning om spending some more time on Fountain Pen Network and perhaps getting a used one. They somtimes show up in the marketplace. In this review by The Penny Writer there is some pictures of a modified Namiki Falcon that got me interested in this pen. Here is another on the calligraphy blog A Place To Flourish by Jane Farr, a very inspiring artist. There is also some reviews and more photos on Richard Binders homepage and on Fountain Pen Network (take a look in the subforum with Japanese pens, Pens from the Land of the Rising Sun where I found this impressive Youtube review of the pen).

Read Full Post »

A new view. Mit Kater.

This is my new view. I moved about 20 meters, to apartment- and cat-sit a few weeks for a friend who is away working. This will continue either til the middle of march or until I get a job (still no news) and know where I am headed next. The uncertainty is getting to me a little, but I try (and somewhat succeed) to enjoy the moment. Not too difficult, when I am waking up to scenes like this:

I now live with boxes, cats and assorted books and trinkets I could not make myself to stove away properly (I have always liked to really live in my living space). One thing that is packed is my ink and art stuff collection (part of it, anyway) below. These things have a tendency to accumulate. Nota bene, this is far from everything I’ve got:

Here is a monster to keep you hanging on to the blog (hopefully) until I once again have access to a scanner (maybe, just maybe some sockbirds are waiting to be published).

This is a proper drollery, taken from the margin of my standard notebook where I write (eh, draw) various lists (the lists oftentimes gets overtaken by monsters and vines). Originally about 3×4 cm, Noodler’s Black and Diamine Poppy Red on Clairefontaine paper. With Parker 51 pens. As usual.

Read Full Post »

Hothouse Cocoon People

Title: Hothouse Cocoon People
Size: 8×5 cm
Equipment: Parker 51 (EF nib) with Noodler’s Black, Parker 51 Fantasy (Kullock) M nib with Burma Road Brown. Kolinsky sable brush, W&N series 7.
Computer alteration: edited out some notes at the left.
Paper: Clairefontaine
Inspiration: Brian Aldiss Hothouse. One of the first and finest SF-books I ever read.
Notes: This is another drollery from the margins of my sketchbook-cum-calendar. I draw and write a page for each week, filling in lists, stuff to do per day, plans, etc. Much more fun than a regular, lined calendar.
Important notice: I am not sure what will happen when they hatch.
Reading tips Brian Aldiss Hothouse. I have still not read it in english, and I wish I had an early edition from the 60s or 70s as I love the design of old SF/Fantasy pocket-books. The book spurned a long “graphic-novel”esque production from me at app age 12, a heap of papers which I still have hidden somewhere. I do not recall very much of the story, but I remember being happy drawing it.
Links: in this year-old article from The Guardian, famous authours picked their favourite SF books. Stephen Baxter choose Hothouse. The article is full of good recommendations, go read it!
In other news: yep, I got a Kullock Fantasy Parker 51. It is a demonstrator and it has a nice, smooth medium nib. I currently have Burma Road Brown in it as it is an ink I enjoy drawing with, but I should really have a more spectacular lighter ink in it, to get the most out of it as a demonstrator pen. I’m thinking of R&K Alt Goldgrün. I am in a green mood, as always.

Read Full Post »

Hopping Horsebirds

Title: Hopping Horsebirds
Equipment: Lamy Safari B nib with Noodler’s Apache Sunset. Parker 51 EF with Noodler’s Black. Lamy Safari EF with Diamine Poppy Red (for the tongues).
Paper: Rhodia lined notebook
Inspiration: Intuitive drawing with the goal of making these critters really move. I am not sure I am up to psychoanalyzing exactly why I consistently return to motifs of fish, birds, weird animal combinations and juxtaplorations (my very own, very new portmanteau, it gets NO hits at all on Google. Cool. Experimental linguistics certainly lost a talent when I decided to pursue other areas of academia).
Notes: The Lamy Safari B nib is broad and wet to the point that it is possible to use it as a “brush” of sorts, as you can see in the drawing. No brush, no washes, no brush-pen. Just fountain pens! The technique is the same as in the post Drollerish Alien Landscape, only the black colour is here Noodler’s black instead of Parker Black Cartridge. It is interesting how different the colour-palette becomes after changing only one component. It is like the bluish black of the Parker brought forth the orange in the Apache Sunset, while the Noodler’s black mixed with Apache Sunset made all these greenish hues come through. Another good thing with the Noodler’s Black is that it is permanent when dry, so by blending quickly you get a nice mix, but if you want a clear black line you can get that too.
Important notice: The horsebirds are confused because they cannot fly. This is why they are hopping around in vain trying to lift from ground. As they are not very smart, it is unlikely they will stop hopping anytime soon. Quite tragic, really.
In Other News Coming up: the one-year anniversary of the blog. The 22nd of January!

Read Full Post »

Drollerish Alien Landscape

I am slightly synaestethic, associating letters, words and numbers with colours. “Drollery” is a light and airy word, like sunshine on warm sand. The -ish ending makes it even nicer. “Doodle” is not as pretty, it is a more flat beige-boring yellow.

That is why I won’t have a ”doodle”-tag, I’ll call everything that dribbles out of my pen under non-controlled circumstances (when I should be writing) a ”drollery” even though it might not strictly fall in the Wikipedia definition of drollery. A sketch is a whole other story (which I too seldom associate myself with) since it is made under planned, controlled circumstances (at least more controlled than the doodle, right?). The semantics is making my head hurt, so let’s go on to the drawing:

Title: Drollerish Alien Landscape
Size: app. 15×3 cm
Equipment: Parker Rollerball with bluish black cartridge ink, partially dried and clumpy with age (also used making my Swamp Elf). Lamy Safari with broad nib. Coloured ink is Noodler’s Apache Sunset.
Computer alteration: none.
Paper: Rhodia lined notebook.
Inspiration: this calls for an explanation of the word “drollery” (see link above). I first encountered it when I was surfing on Wikipedia looking for variations on intuitive drawing. Believe me, SO much fell in to place. This is my scholarly life, people. Weird conglomerations of animals doing unspeakable things in margins of notebooks. Yep.
Notes: The broad, very smooth nib of the Lamy Safari made blending the two inks easy. Mixed, they produced a very nice yellowish green colour I wish I could reproduce. The Parker pen has kicked the bucket, have not found a suitable replacement yet.
Reading tips I own an interesting book “The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science”. It is edited by Crétien van Campen. The link leads to the publisher, you can also find a very extensive list of publications and other resources there. I look forward to exploring several of them myself.

Read Full Post »

Flying saucage with wings

I have been having a hard time at work lately. Due to various political and local problems, people quitting and such. Not being happy at work and having to spend days solving useless administrative problems instead of doing worthwhile things have made me tired and actually rather depressed. On the other hand, hitting your head against walls does make it more sturdy, ne?

This little drollery, a saucer/sausage, is a little over a year old and made with the lovely combination (if I remember correctly) of Noodler’s Apache Sunset in a Lamy Safari and some black ink (Noodler’s?) in another Lamy Safari (drawin with the tip turned upside down for app 0.5 mm line breadth). The paper is lined Rhodia that is very pleasant to write on, although I prefer my paper blank for obvious reasons.

I think he is flying to a happier place and that he is rather determined to get there. Wish him luck, because I might be going with him!

Read Full Post »

In the days of rollerballs…

…and an endless fascination of Nightmare Before Christmas I drew this little guy. Didn’t bother to clean the file up digitally, the quality is bad. The drawing is made in 2000.

In other words, I am back from vacation but I haven’t been drawing as much as I planned. Actually, I’ve been quite exhausted and only by reading massive amounts of books (among others “Welcome to Bordertown” and the first four books of Anne of Green Gables) I have reloaded my mental batteries enough to now, four weeks later, return to some sort of creative mindset. Only one new pen, an Edward Todd dip pen. Not as flexy as I expected. A review of my two Edward Todds is upcoming, together with several more monster-focused posts.

Read Full Post »

My first Parker “51”

As a pen collector and user I like to “gamble”, buying old pens in auctions with bad pics or misspellings. I have made more than a few lucky finds, a couple of them spectacular. Higher end Parker pens are not a common find that way. Too many collectors and the design is too easy to recognize in bad pictures.

In this one auction there was only one dark, blurry picture. The word “Fountain pen” misspelled in the title. I got 5 pens without much bidding. Three of them were junk. One was a very, very abused Matador, a brand I collect and recognized despite the bad pic (the only reason I bid on the auction). Unfortunately it was in too bad of a shape to rescue (the barrel was bitten nearly through (!) and it broke in half when I examined it). The cap was in good shape though, as was the nib, only a bent tine.

But I digress.

The last pen of the lot was a black Parker 51 with a gold-filled cap. Personalized barrel. I rinsed it through, filled it with Noodler’s black and it has functioned without a single problem for several months since. I love it. I like the vintage flex, pretty celluoid and the classic 30-40s shapes better for collecting and writing, but for daily drawing this pen is awesome. The nib is probably F or EF. It is possible to get an even thinner line by drawing with the nib upside down. Close-up of the nib below behind the cut.

I believe my pen is a Parker “51” Demi-sized Vacumatic Filler Plain Arrow Clip 1947-1948. Figured it out with the help of this informative site: www.parker51.com

Dark History of Doom: When I was a little girl I used black ballpoint pens for drawing in spiral bound notebooks (graph or ruled). That was the equipment available to me at the time. The pens always skipped and dried out after a while. I can still remember the happiness of getting my little hands on a “good” ballpoint pen, using it for a short while and then having to begin searching for a new one all over again.
I wish I could travel back in time and give myself a Parker 51!

Read Full Post »

Dancing lady with tentacles

I blame Cthulhu

Title: Dancing lady with tentacles (yes, I’m angling for that crowd (no, that pun was not intended))
Size: about 10×7 cm
Equipment: Rotring Art Pen XF with Rotring black ink.
Computer alteration: None. I believe both this post and the previous could have used at least some alteration to bring out the best in them. Will put more effort into cleaning up pictures before posting them when my move is over.
Paper: Unnamed sketchbook from London.
Inspiration: This started off as a dancing lady but ended up somewhere else. I blame Cthulhu. The tentacles weren’t planned at all. Have to make a drawing of this one from the front. Maybe there is just tentacles and no lady at all?
Today’s learning experience None, I already knew how to spell Cthulhu.
Upcoming posts Before I leave for a work-related conference nex week I hope to post a librarian monster and a very colorful myller. There is also another fountain pen post planned, this time I’d like to present to you a very smooth Hebborn with Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan.

Read Full Post »