Avram's journal

Stopped off at Borders to use a 30% off coupon and pick up yet another Moleskine book. This time one of the ordinary blank notebooks, instead of a sketchbook, and reporter-style because that’s all they had left. Since I’ll only be using one side of the paper, that ought to work out well.


Then off to Kinokuniya Books to try out some new pens. Got a bunch. The Pilot Hi-Tec-C 0.25 tip is probably the finest-tipped pen I’ve ever used that wasn’t a high-priced technical pen. (This was around $3.)

The brush pens were a mediocre bunch, though I see the prices seem to have come down a bit. My fave of the lot is a Pilot with fine-point brushes at both ends — one black, one gray. No identifying info I can read, because it’s all in Japanese, see?

I did this pencil sketch on the subway last week. I think the guy noticed me, but he just kept on reading. I’d forgotten how much I like drawing in pencil. I ran a blending marker over the graphite later; maybe that’ll keep it from smudging. Probably not, but maybe.

I sketched this woman quickly after dinner at a local pizzeria, using my Pilot Precise V5. There’s something freeing about just slapping some rough ink lines down quick and then going back and developing the details and emphasizing the good bits. Maybe I should Photoshop some color in, like mishmow does here.

( More sketches )

BTW, the books I’m using the weigh down my scanner cover (to help my Moleskine lie flat) are the Angels and Devils books from Taschen’s Icons series.

I stopped off in Hudson County Art Supply the other day, and found these Yasutomo Grip500 mechanical pencils. Back in college I’d used a model very like this, which I liked because the point retracts into a plastic sleeve, protecting the point and my pocket from each other. I haven’t been able to find the brand I used in college, which was a bit sturdier than the Yasutomos, but these’ll do. I’ve filled mine with 2B leads, softer and darker than the HBs it comes with.

I picked up another couple of Moleskine sketchbooks at The Art Store, figuring I might as well stock up while they’re on sale. I’m probably going all Moleskine, all the time. I could switch to a smaller shoulder bag, but I still need something I can carry comics in.

Played something new at Games Club (last Lerner Games Club of the year): Ticket to Ride, a simple yet challenging rail game. I got a really lucky pair of starting tickets — LA-to-Chicago and LA-to-NY, both high-value and both overlapping to a serious degree. I had to start building rails early, because if I’d gotten locked out of the middle of the board I’d have had to eat -37 points. But that kept me from building many long rail stretches, which cost me enough points to drop me into third out of five players.

Stopped off at Starbucks on the way to GC, did some drawing:

( More sketches, including some color )

There wasn’t any new work for me at the office today. It took a couple of hours to finish off something left over from yesterday, and then I had the day off. (Without pay, of course, since I’m a freelancer. Otherwise it would be much cooler.) Nothing tomorrow either.

Why couldn’t they run out of work on a nice, sunny day? It was cold and rainy. I went over to Coliseum Books and did some sketching anyway. I read in 43 Folders how a lot of Moleskine users really like the Pilot G2 gel pen, and I discovered one in the pen holder on my desk, so I snagged it and tried it out. Maybe it works on Moleskine’s writing paper, but it’s too blobby and skippy for their slick sketchpad paper.

( Window of the NY Public Library main building, done with blobby skippy Pilot G2 )

Then I knocked off a bunch of heads with that unidentifiable Japanese brushpen that works nicely with the Moleskine. The large one at the upper left and the one at the lower right were both people sitting nearby who I could sketch over the course of a minute or so; the others were all quickies, mostly passers-by who I just saw for a few seconds.

( Various heads, in brushpen )

Then the kick-ass discovery of the millennium: My favored pen for writing, the one I buy in boxes of and carry around in the loop on my PDA belt-holder, the Pilot Precise V5, works really well on Moleskine sketch paper! It’s like Dorothy finding out that the shoes she’s been wearing all movie are the thing she’s been questing for. The ink isn’t water-proof, but I can make that a feature. The Melorne head shot up at the top of this comment was done with the V5, and then shaded a bit with a water pen. The Moleskine paper’s thick enough that the drawings on the other side weren’t disturbed.

Did a little sketching at Ground this evening. I had a more ambitious picture in mind, but it didn’t get past the pencil stage before I could see I was screwing it up. So I pulled out the larger-sized Moleskine and tried out my Pentel Color Brush. As I feared, the slick Moleskine sketchpad paper just isn’t absorbant enough for the rich tarry black the Color Brush is capable of making. Meh.

( Sketch of Melorne; I’m still working at the dramatic lighting thing )

I lu-u-urve the Moleskine form factor, and the handy extras like the elastic band, the bookmark, the pocket in the back, and the fact that it lies flat. I just don’t like the paper in the sketchbook. I’m giving serious thought to building my own sketchbooks, with hot-press watercolor paper.

Let’s see… It looks like each signature in one of these 4x7" Moleskine sketchbooks has three 8x7" sheets of paper, folded in half for six leaves, or twelve pages. The website says it’s got 100 pages, which ought to come out to about eight signatures. I might go for a slightly larger book, 5x8 or something like that if the paper sizes work out. If I just go for a straight eight signatures, three sheets each, that’s 24 sheets of 8x10 paper.

The standard size for watercolor paper is the Imperial 22x30" sheet. If I cut that into eighths, I get 7.5x11 sheets, which make 5.5x7.5, which is about right. Dick Blick sells a student-quality 90# (~200 gsm) sheet for, um, 38¢. Wow. A dollar will buy me enough to make a sketchbook. Though I’d have to buy at least ten sheets, and they don’t say what surface it’s got. Hm, “textured”, that doesn’t sound like hot press, which is what I want.

Arches makes a 90# hot press at $2.38 an Imperial sheet. I’d have to order ten ($24), which would make three sketchbooks ($8 each for the paper). Not bad.

Update: Or bristol board! That could maybe work. Do tests first.