So much going on I forgot to do a sketch this week, and now I’m away from my pencils and paper, and my new iPad is incompatible with my 1st gen Apple Pencil. So while I wait for the newer pencil to arrive, the best I can do is this digital “fingerpainting” of a horse. The week’s not quite over yet, right?
I rage-quit this one before it was finished, because the pen was all wrong for the job.
I haven’t had any drawing pens on hand for years, so I asked Elizabeth if I could borrow one of hers for this week’s sketch. She gave me two, knowing full well that I would probably lose both of them before the week was up. Losing pens is my superpower.
Elizabeth draws comics. She uses one kind of pen, the Pilot G-2. Turns out she likes that particular pen for the binary nature of its ink flow: it is either drawing a line or it is not. Pressure or lack thereof does not make thicker or thinner lines, there is no “bold” option, no faint translucent shading. It is incompatible with my drawing style.
I gave up when I got to the horse’s head and could not draw fine lines. I won’t be doing any more inkwork unless I get inspired to buy some pens. I gave Elizabeth’s abominations back to her.
Well, one of them. I have no idea what happened to the other pen.
Elizabeth has spoken fondly of “the family next door” to where she and Emma stayed in Paljorling Camp. Pressed for details, she just says that they’re really nice. This family next door is still kind of a mystery for me.
On January 26, the family next door took the girls out for a drive around Pokhara.
Scenes from an SUV window:
Elizabeth liked the narrow, winding roads.
They visited Pema Tsal Sakya Monastery.
The Family Next Door:
The monastery sits on a hilltop, with sweeping views of the surrounding area.
Moobs!
The colorful cloth squares are prayer flags.
RAWR!
The Prayer Wheel.
I like the peacock embellishments on the gray building.
Back in the SUV. The view out the window is mustard crops; mustard oil is a popular condiment in Nepal.
Horsie!
The ubiquitous Phewa Tal
Pretty wall
This is the room Emma and Elizabeth stayed in at Paljorling Camp. So cozy!
Meanwhile, on this day the U.S. confirmed three more cases of Covid-19, bringing the nationwide total up to five confirmed cases. No one was worried yet.
To be continued!
My water-damaged iPad has settled into a limbo state where I can charge the battery, adjust the volume (as evidenced by how loud the “connected to power” chime sounds) and sync it with my MacBook, but the screen is completely black and unresponsive. It’s out of warranty, so Apple will charge almost the cost of a new iPad to service it. And with the Apple Stores closed down for the pandemic, I can’t even just go pick up a new one. Soooo, I’ll be going old-school with my sketches for the next few weeks.
Here is a bunny. I like bunnies.
My iPad recently decided to join me in my after-work tub soak. While I wait to find out if it’s salvageable, I’ve dug out my old sketchbooks and drawing pencils for this week’s sketch. I wasn’t sure I’d even remember how to draw without the digital convenience of virtual layers and the Undo button, but it all came back as soon as my pencil touched paper.
This yearling was going to be a pen-and-ink sketch, but I like the messy vibe of the graphite draft. I’m not going to ink over it.
Special thanks to my friend Kathy, who gifted me a beautiful set of high-quality drawing pencils just as I was venturing into digital art. The pencils have been waiting patiently all these years for their time to shine!
