Entry for Jan 11, 2015

On the Sunday afternoon, I went to the ARC studio. Gwen was working for that day, and this is a 2-hour study above and a 35-minute one below.
I went back and revisited water-soluble pencils and Artgraf washes, with no ink underpainting. The top one has some graphite pencil overdrawing to bring up and bridge different values.

2nd entry for Jan 9, 2014

These are three 10-minute studies above, and four 15-minute ones below. I have this recurring interest in the idea of three or four Pentel brushpens with a mix of ink densities. They do for sure allow some good brushy linear options. But as with the studies of Ben, they don't flow fast enough to build up large even areas of value.
I was considering that that is maybe a function of image size. If the drawings were smaller, there would be less ground to cover. I am not so far any kind of a Moleskine-sized drawer. 18 x 24" still feels constraining.  But for some drawing situations, like a crowded Collective session in a small space, working small has definite advantages. And the Pentel pens being self-contained have a lot less mess factor for onsite drawing anywhere where carpets or such are a worry.
Another consideration with water-based media is warpage; thicker paper stocks are the best alternative to stretching paper, but they get costly, unless subdivided.
All of these have lines with a Pitt medium-point pen. The top two studies here are on 18 x 24" Canson Recycled Sketch paper - nice and slick, and washes stay up top, but buckles quite a bit. The more creamy paper is an 18 x24"  90 LB Somerset Book which doesn't buckle much and ink sinks really nicely into it., with mild buckling.
The next two are on Strathmore Series 400 paper, which I find fights the ink a bit. The last two are on Canson XL Watercolour paper sheets. The ink behaves quite well on these and stays more on top for making for easier blending, and I succeeded in bringing the scale to much smaller than usual, which meant less time needed for patchy filling of areas, and more time for building up.
I also worked out that if I touched a brushpen with a pale wash in it on the tip of a black pen, it gave me  a brief dark tone that is easily graduated to a lighter value, which really expands the rapid tonal possibilities.
I typically crop out the excess blank paper in these studies, but at the bottom is a picture of the whole 18 x 24" sheet of the last study.

1st entry for Jan. 9, 2015

On the friday night I went over to the TSA to do some drawing. Polyna was working, and I was continuing on my blind/nearly-blind contour kick for short poses.
These are four 1-minute studies above and three 5-minute ones below. All are Pitt pen on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.

2nd entry for Jan. 5th, 2015

These are a 5-minute study up top, four 10-minute ones and a 15-minute study at the bottom. The top one is just Pitt pen; the others are Pitt pen and dilute ink from a Pentel brushpen on 18 x 24" sheets of cartridge paper. (I didn't have any Canson Recycled Sketch paper with me that night)
I was liking how the brushpen was working, but a little frustrated by how much slower its flow was than what I wanted, which led to lots of drybrushing. Which, overall, was not the worst thing to be doing,
It had been almost a month since I was working on short poses from life, but I feel I was using the media quite confidently that night.

1st entry for Jan 5, 2014

On the Monday night I went to the TSA's open session. Ben did his very athletic 1-minute poses.  I was still strong on the `blind gesture' concept, so I tried to look little or not at all at my page while doing these,  They are all Pitt pen on 18 x 24" sheets of cartridge paper.

Entry for Jan 4, 2015 (first entry for 2015)

(It's been a bit of a hiatus, getting back into the rhythm of a new school year and such. Got a few things to share in the next while, though)
On the Sunday afternoon, I was over at the ARC studio. Alina was working, and it was another atelier black velvet backdrop.  The drawing got going slowly, and building up values took a while, so there's just the one for that afternoon.
This is Chinese ink, water-soluble graphite and oil-based pencil on an 18 x 24" sheet of Canson XL Watercolour paper.
The paper was buckling a fair bit under the washes, which got me thinking about heavier paper, at least where extended drawings are concerned.

Entry for Dec 10, 2014

On the Wednesday I went over to the Art Bar session at the Gladstone.  Murray was there, the music was working okay, and I had a little corner in the crowded space. These are two 5-minute studies, three 7-minute ones, three 10-minute ones and a 15-minute one at the bottom.
The top four are Pitt pen and gray brushpen. The ones below that also include a black Pentel brushpen. All are on 18" square sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper, except for the bottom one, which is on a sheet of 140 lb. Maidstone paper, the same size.

Entry for Dec. 4, 2014

On the Thursday night, Michelle was the volunteer model for a Collective drawing session on Broadview Ave. The space was tight, so I kept my working materials down to one medium point and one calligraphy point Pitt pen, a gray ink brushpen and a pencil. These are all on 18" square sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.