That Time of Year for a Pen Show

I have no idea where the month of July went and barely remember the month of June. Somehow I thought I had another week until the pen show starts. I was so wrong.

Luckily I wasn’t in the middle of a project this week and I just dropped what I was doing. I have to get ready. I have to figure out which fountain pens to bring. What inky colors to fill my pens with. Oh and let’s not forget my…LISTS. My wishlist of items to purchase. That list will be a short one this year. My long vendor list of places to visit. Meeting old friends and making new ones.

I’ve gotten into a lovely habit of creating a pen & ink wash sketches in my Pen Show Journal. I knew I was going to be a bit rusty as it’s been several months since I’m done any sketching with my fountain pens. First, I had to locate my Pentel water brush that I strictly use for my pen & ink wash artwork. For a warm-up practice sketch, I started with grapes. Easy shapes to create. I used my fave inks Lucky Cosmos and Brane. The Colorverse inks work well with my sketching techniques.

Next, I just went for it and sketched my Pilot Custom Heritage 92 fountain pen. Sigh! Let me do that one more time…SIGH! You can see in the picture that I had used Pilot Shin Kai ink to create my pen & ink wash sketch. Well, it was less of a wash and a tiny bit of a struggle using this ink. I forgot about this ink brand and why I don’t use it for my artwork. Those of you who took my workshops and know how I enjoy laying down the ink on paper and then using the water brush to draw out the ink and underlying inky properties. Well, it doesn’t work well with the Pilot inks. I literally had to place the ink on my water brush and sketch out the pen. It took a bit more work to manipulate this ink on paper. I do enjoy the Pilot inks for writing just not for my pen & ink wash sketches.

For the next sketch I used my fave Thunderstorm ink to create my water brush artwork. Using my beautiful fountain pens and ink to sketch…was like riding a bicycle. It took a minute or two to get into my groove.

I’m still deciding which pens to take with me. Mostly for writing and jotting down notes in my pen show journal. I plan on bringing my travel watercolor supplies with me to create some artwork when I’m taking my breaks from the show.