Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Trying Out New Things

I really do not know where the time goes some weeks. I've been working on that last set of padfolios I shared in this post - have one last one to stitch and then I will share those five. Am turning my thoughts to Adrift, and as I look for the last blog post about it, I cannot believe it has been a year since I folded it up with yarns and threads I hoped could be grasses. Good grief, I really DON'T know where time goes. I have hopes I can resolve my uneasiness with it now in time for this year's ArtWalk. In the meantime, I needed a break yesterday, a different place for my mind to wander. There's been a new Zentangle that caught my interest, and I'd finally gotten some ink for the second of the fountain pens which came with a cartridge converter.

Molygon tangle

I lost myself for over an hour on this and wish I could say I was pleased with the effort. The tangle is called molygon - another tangle that mimics familiar quilting motifs. There were many suggestions of fillers for the cashew shape and for some reason, the one I chose didn't come across on my version quite like it did on the official example. I'm wishing I'd chosen something different. I'm a bit on the fence about the ink color as well. I ran into the same problem selecting that from the many available to me as I do thread when I don't have something specific in mind for its use. I defaulted to brown - oh so me, right? But really, I was thinking about old documents that so often are written in a sepia tone and I think I will do some actual writing with this pen. The brown in my Pigma pen is really quite red and doesn't look as good on these tan toned papers as I thought it would. So brown it is, but it has turned out to be a very dark brown - so dark that as I was drawing with it, I had to double check that I didn't grab the pen with the black ink instead. But under better light as here, you can see it is definitely brown.

I still had some issues with the fountain pen on the paper this tile is made from. It is not perfectly smooth, and although I have not noticed this to be an issue with the micron pens, I kept feeling that the nib of the fountain  pen occasionally caught on the irregularities. And as with the other fountain pen, I often found my curved lines skipping and in need of going over a second time - I think it is due to the way I hold the pen. It happened less towards the end as I got used to the feel of the barrel in my hand. One thing I did like over the other pen is I am getting a slightly finer line which is better for working on the Zentangles and probably also for the sort of sketching I might do with it.

3 comments:

Living to work - working to live said...

And I was just thinking "how lovely" that brown is!

Still, a critical eye drives you forward.

H xxx

Christine Staver said...

Good to see a post from you.....I have not tried out my fountain pen yet that I got for Christmas. Looks like they can act up a little or not give you the results you expect.

Or as my mother would say when an appliance was not behaving as she wanted...."it's fighting me." I guess appliances had personalities from my mother's perspective! Maybe fountain pens do, too.

Glad to read your blog before I adventure out into using my pen.

Chris

The Idaho Beauty said...

Hilary, I definitely feel like Goldilocks, looking for that "just right" in the middle: not too light and red, not too deep and brown, just a nice medium value in a warm tone. I know it's out there! But you are right, this brown is lovely in its own way.

You are very kind to reference "a critical eye" as opposed to a merely cranky one. Crankiness is more how it feels some days and that too can move you forward. ;-)

Chris - I so agree with your mother. Mastering some of these new tools and techniques really does feel like a war at times. Looking forward to hearing about your own trials (and tribulations?)with a fountain pen.