Page 2. Tools and materials

For busy people who want to sketch (and who isn't busy these days?)

You want to sketch, but maybe you are not able dedicate much time to it. Or maybe you simply find long sketching sessions tedious. No need to feel guilty; practically everything we enjoy in life becomes miserable or even harmful if taken to extremes. It's a matter of dosage.

A small dose of sketching now and then can greatly enhance your life. You are the boss. Short sketching sessions of only a few minutes can be very fulfilling, and more enjoyable than long marathon sketch sessions.

I confess I sometimes find it a challenge to fit sketch time into my schedule. I don't sketch every day, but manage to sketch just enough to keep a little art in my life. Looking back at the past forty years since I took up sketching, I can see many times when sketching was practically all I did or thought about; I was obsessed with it. Those times alternated with periods of little or no sketching at all, when other things pushed my art to the back burner. Sometimes these dry periods lasted for years.

It's good to recognize that if there is a lot going on in your life, then your activity in sketching might resemble a pendulum; you will go back and forth. When you realize that you aren't sketching as you had in the past, don't throw away your supplies and think you have moved on. It's a good idea to keep a minimum of sketch tools handy for the moment when the spark returns and you find you are once again able to give a little more attention to your art. A tiny sketchbook and a few of your favorite sketch tools in your bag will call you when the pendulum starts to swing back.

This section covers the particular tools I use in my sketching. Some are perfect for busy people (and some are not so perfect).

Pencils

The pencil is still the most versatile sketching tool, and easiest to control. Using a pencil might help you to sketch more often and not worry about the results so much. Pencil sketches are often characterized by their wide range of grays and soft smudged appearance. If you lean towards a crisp pen and ink style, you can still draw in that style with a 0.5mm mechanical pencil with B or 2B lead (okay, it's actually graphite or something).

Pencil and watercolor sketch of a water covered rice paddy. Done with .7mm mechanical pencil in a pocket sketchbook, 12.7 X 9 centimeters. This was drawn in more of a crisp ink style than a traditional pencil style. This took about 10 minutes.

Make sure to expose the smallest amount of lead as is practical to minimize breaking as you apply pressure. Mechanical pencils with tube openings are favored by artists and draftsmen since the lead is better protected near the tip. The pencil below has a tube opening.

This ugly little pencil is my absolute favorite. I have been using it for around 15 years and always carry it in the front pocket of my trousers. It's a size 0.9 and contains 2B leads. It used to be a full length pencil made by Ohto. I sanded off the shiny green paint, and sawed it down to 11.5 centimeters (4 3/8 inches) for portability. I wish I could find more wooden pencils in this size, but they are no longer made.

Mechanical pencils come in thicker lead sizes as well. 0.7mm and 0.9mm size leads don't break as easily, but also don't make the sharp fine line of a 0.5 lead. There are also the drafting lead holders that take 2 mm leads and make a line very similar to the traditional wooden pencil. You may need to buy a portable lead pointer for fine line work, however. If you like to sketch in pencil but don't like the gray tone of graphite, try using a black colored pencil for lines as dark as ink. Some colored pencils are erasable and therefore as friendly as graphite pencils. A lot of color pencils resist water very well while others are water soluble.

Of course, the traditional wood pencil is still widely used by those who don't mind sharpening them or carrying around a whole bunch that are already sharpended.

Dip Pen and Ink

Nothing beats pen and ink for clean, crisp line work. The traditional tool for this ink sketching is the dip pen and bottle of ink, preferably waterproof india ink if you are going to cover the drawing with watercolor. Of course, this is also very inconvenient and messy for sketching outside.

You could borrow an idea from the Japanese. For centuries Japanese writers and artists have a used a spill proof brush and ink carrier called a "yatate" which has an ink pot filled with cotton or silk which has been saturated with ink, but not to the point of dripping. You could do the same thing with a film canister filled with cotton and saturated with ink. You could then dip a pen, brush or even popsicle stick or twig in the ink and not worry about spills if the whole thing gets knocked over.

Of course, you still need to clean the pen or brush when you are finished, which makes this less than the ideal choice for a busy sketcher. Some dip pens have amazingly flexible nibs, some are so flexible they are very difficult to use without some practice.

Dip pens make their best lines when using down strokes. Up strokes can make scratchy lines or even cause the tines to catch on the paper, causing a mess. You have to vary the position of your hand to get the best angles for the best strokes. Also, dip pens leave a bead of ink on the surface of the paper that takes a while to dry. It's very easy to forget this and smear ink all over the drawing with your hand.

Fountain pens

Many pen and ink sketchers choose fountain pens for sketching. These are very portable and convenient and still retain that old traditional feeling. Some come with fairly flexible nibs, but no modern fountain pen nib can match a dip pen for flexibility. If you want extreme variation in line width you will have to stick to a dip pen or even a brush.

In the early 20th century a lot of fountain pens had very flexible nibs. However, with the advent of the ballpoint pen (biro) people changed their writing habits and began applying much more pressure in order to get a decent line. This was okay for ballpoint pens but resulted in delicate flexible nibs being ruined. Now no modern pen company produces a truly flexible fountain pen nib, and you have to search the vintage pen market to find one. But it takes more concentration to use a flex pen since you have to control the amount of pressure at all times. Hatching a series of lines of consistent width becomes a major feat.

Because of this, many people prefer a stiff nib fountain pen for quick sketching because there is less to think about. Most modern fountain pens, even cheap ones have stiff suitable nibs for fast sketching.

Fountain pens also work best when using down strokes like dip pens, but because most fountain pens have a ball of tipping material on the end, the issue is not as great. This tipping material is usually made of a combination of iridium and osmium or some other hard metals. It serves to protect the tip from wear since lot of fountain nibs are made of gold, and are not disposable like dip pen nibs.

Most fountain pen inks are watersoluble which will allow you to get some great shading effects if you use a little water in a brush to draw out the ink. If you want to paint watercolors over the ink drawing, you will need to use waterproof fountain pen ink. You can't put regular drawing ink in a fountain pen or it will dry up inside the ink channels and under the nib and ruin the pen. I know of two brands of waterproof fountain pen ink today: Platinum's carbon ink and Noodler's black ink. I have both, and they work very well for me. Platinum Carbon ink comes in a bottle, or cartridges which will only fit Platinum pens. Noodlers ink comes only in a bottle as of this writing.

To use bottled inks you would need to find a fountain pen that accepts an ink converter. Ink converters fit in the pen in place of a cartridge and have filling systems, usually with a piston or squeeze bar so you can use bottle ink with your fountain pen. Some pen companies make converters and cartridges that will only fit their particular pens, but many companies use a standard size cartridge called International or European, and their converters are also usually interchangeable. Waterman, Pelikan and MontBlanc are among these companies.

Disposable pens

By far the most popular tools for ink sketching today are disposable pigment pens. They come in a variety of nib sizes and make a very black permanent line that is completely waterproof when dry. You can also draw in any direction and angle and get a consistent line. Several companies make these, and they are easily obtained. They are great for carefree sketching with a stiff nib pen. You need to carry more than one with you since you never know when one will run out of ink.