A Simple Building Sketch

Oh my! I completed only one blog post for the whole month of February. I blame this blog-silence on my creativity. My creativity tends to come and go. Right now it has been going full force and I’m having a blast with it. I’ve been creating my pen & ink art on a daily basis. Some days I’m creating practice sketches and most days I’m creating real artwork. I’m in a happy state of mind.

I’m now finding some time to blog again and I’ve noticed my writing skills are a bit lacking. Bear with me as I try to remember how to write and punctuate my sentences correctly. I’m sure all of this will come back to me. Like riding a bicycle, right?

As I mentioned before I’ve been focusing on my pen & ink sketches and techniques. I’ve been working in two of my Stillman & Birn Alpha journals. The larger one is a soft cover in a size A5 (5.5″x8.5″) and I covered it with a few of my stickers I created using my Cricut Maker. The smaller black journal has a hardbound cover in a size 4″x6″. It’s a chunky pocket size journal and as you can see I have yet to decorate the cover.

I’ve been using my smaller journal for quick sketches and for sketching smaller objects. Also I’m using it to test new sketches or techniques. It’s so nice to work on smaller paper with immediate gratification.

A few weeks ago I made a transition from sketching gnomes to sketching buildings. I’ve been wanting to learn something new and “Urban Sketching” kept appearing on my radar. Actually, I’ve been wanting to do this type of sketching, but chickened out as I was not ready to sit outside and sketch buildings or sit in a coffee shop and sketch the surroundings. I was not ready to sit and sketch in public. For now, I’ve been practicing by sketching from photos.

I’m a decent sketcher when it comes to objects that sit on a table or desk. Like what I have for breakfast, my fountain pens, gnomes (from my mind), shells, flowers, etc. This is all good until I get bored. This is why I’m jumping on the Urban Sketching band wagon. Broadening my horizons. Learning something new and most importantly challenging myself.

I’ve attempted to sketch buildings and sometimes they come out wonky or flat looking. I hope to change that with lots of practice. Here’s my sketch of a simple building using my Copic Multiliner SP markers in 0.5 and 0.1.

I decided to use only two fountain pen ink colors in this pen & ink sketch. Black Ivy is turning out to be a new favorite color for me. You can see in my swatch how the ink starts out as a dark color with a red sheen and when I apply water to the ink it turns into this lovely green color.

I built up the layers of colors. At some point my paper started to buckle from the multiple layers I added.

My small journal sat on my desk for a few hours and the paper eventually settled down and flattened itself.

I enjoy using this journal and paper for my pen & ink art. It’s somewhat durable and accepts the many layers of colors I lay down. The only time I’ve had any bleed through was when I was “scrubbing” the paper with my water brush a bit too much. Other than that, I’ve been quite happy with this journal brand.

I’ll be back to share more sketches.

Pens used: TWSBI GOs with Stub 1.1 nibs. Copic Multiliner SP in 0.5mm and 0.1mm.

Inks: Diamine Black Ivy (Red Inkvent Calendar). Robert Oster Thunderstorm.

Journal: Stillman & Birn Alpha Hardcover (4″x6″) 150 gsm.