4 June, 2018. Over the past couple of days I’ve carried around two pens – my trusty Uni-Ball Deluxe and a white gel pen – and this small, pocket-size Stillman and Birn sketchbook. As always, I’m interested in seeing just how far I can push my sketches while purposefully placing limitations on myself. In this case, the limitation is range of value: black, white, grey, and the implied value created by hatching.
It’s interesting to me how different textures can be achieved by varying the strokes, as well as changing the lines into shapes.
The format of this booklet is so damn small that it does force me to consider positive and negative relationships, as well as recognizing the limitations of drawing across gutters and within the margins.
I also have to stop myself from going to far, making too many marks. Limiting the mark-making and relying on contrasts is effective. As with my choice to draw and later add a spot color to sketches, there’s a mechanical appearance when working on the grey paper that I like.
Selectively choosing which elements get the addition of white allows me to be selective about which elements get emphasized. I think there are some real storytelling opportunities working with this illustration approach, but for now it’s just me fooling around.
Just Sketching 
There is always something positive that results from creating intentional discomfort. Someone commented how much the ATC’s have improved their composition skills! So enjoy that HUGE sketchbook! I’m loving the black, white and grey series.
Again… Nice work. What is the brand name and model of the white gel pen you are using?
It’s made by Art-n-fly, and to be perfectly honest I’m not crazy about it. They got good reviews on Amazon so I ordered three pens. The first batch I received seemed dry to me and I contacted the seller. They responded pretty quickly and said it was probably old ink and sent me some new pens. They worked better than the first batch but they still don’t flow well. The ink just seems to skip a lot. I’ll do more research on the next batch I decide to order… I really want something that flows more readily.