Above: Second sketch of the day (and third and fourth) on my recent trip to the Bell Museum (see below for a link to my first sketch of the day). This 13 x 9 inch page spread (from a journal I made with Magnani Annigoni Designo, which is tan) was prepainted with blue and yellow acrylics before I left home. When I got to the Bell and got to this page I had to paint over that surface. I used a large—about an inch wide—acrylic marker from Montana Markers with blue ink to color around various subjects after I finished the spread. Liz had some thin tipped markers out when we were sitting at the table sketching and writing. I did some test swatches below my sketches of the live turtle. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Last week (not this week, but last) I got to duck over to the Bell Museum for a couple hours of sketching with my friend Liz Carlson. I was getting pretty stir crazy (the Bell Museum had been my last scheduled destination before I got sick and I never got there). It was a great way to get back into the swing of things.
The otter sketch page is my second sketch of the day.
Not everything is a taxidermy specimen at the Bell—I spent some time sketching one of the live turtles. Liz and I both ended the day by sketching the Ptarmigan in a case in the touch and see room. Liz got them to pull it down and put it on our table. Sketching it gave me a chance to try the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's Big Brush Pen in White India ink on the tan surface of the Magnani Annigoni Designo. (Don Colley introduced me to this white pen when he was in Minneapolis in the fall of 2012.)
Below: My final sketch of the day, a Ptarmigan (spelled correctly on my journal page, but not on my scan name), for which I used pen, white pen, and some gouache. My notes on the left-hand page were written at the end of the day when I returned from life drawing. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
