Trial by fire

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to do a lot of drawing on big paper — very big paper. I was drawing on rolls of 48 inch wide colored paper, mostly black.  I made 7 foot tall drawings that I would then trace over onto other sheets and then cut out. Finally, the cut outs were glued to red roll paper that was stapled onto frames. The end products were used for a fund raiser and people loved them. People posed next to them and took pictures.

Of course I waited until the last week to do everything, from constructing the frames to settling on the designs, drawing, cutting them out, and then recreating them after some accidents with a certain dog and spray fixative. In the end, I made six figure drawings and put down a lot of lines.

The time crunch made me work with confidence and efficiency. I got everything together: paper, tape, and I prepped by sharpening dozens of pencils before I began a piece. Once I got started, I didn’t want to have to stop for anything. Well, the hours of drawing were a great test for the supplies I had chosen. I leaned on my tools and here are some results:

The vintage Eagle Verithin in Yellow Ochre (No. 736), of which I have many dozen, performed admirably. The color went down nicely and stood out on the black paper. I now feel vindicated in buying so many of these on eBay. When I had first bought them, I had some buyer’s remorse, wondering what the heck I was going to do with so many yellow pencils. Yellow’s not suited for white paper in general, but the pencils worked nicely on black paper. Random art supplies to the rescue.

The Pentel Hi-Polymer eraser did a good job of sufficiently erasing large areas and not tearing the very thin black paper even while I worked quickly back and forth. When I had to remove the yellow color completely, it did a great job of that, too. Eraser shavings piled on the floor.

I did have one miss, though. I tried using the white, modern Mexican-made Prismacolor and while great for indicating the final (preferred shapes) they were, ultimately, a disappointment. The colored core was not bonded properly to the wood, so the core got pushed out the other end. I wanted to continue using the white, though and fixed the problem by using painters tape on the exit end. I won’t be buying these anymore. Trust me. A real shame. The white was soft and bright on the black, and stood out in stark contrast to the black and rough yellow sketches. These pencils are typically a dollar a piece and are total junk.

In the end, the Verithin once again performed admirably and the Pentel Hi-Polymer eraser earned it’s place on my drawing table. But bye, bye, Mexican-made Prismacolor. Thank goodness for eBay, where old art supplies wait for their final destinies (to show up their modern would be successors). I’ll definitely be looking out for a box of American made white Prismacolors with a bonded white core to wood case — nice concept.

The Pentel Energel RTX .5 mm retractable needle point pen

The Pentel Energel RTX .5 mm retractable needle point pen (whew, that’s a long description) is as smooth a pen as I’ve ever used. I tried out a 3-pack of purple Energel RTXs with a medium .7 mm point before I plunked down the money for a twelve pack of needle points. Next, I’ll probably get a pack of .7 mm black pens but I’m going to try to make the .5mm work for me first. I need to use what I buy.

I’ve been looking for a pen to draw on top of graphite and colored pencils. I can’t remember where I heard about these Energels or why I considered them for drawing. Till now, the only pens that I’ve gotten to go on top of pencils have been ballpoints but the ink in these tend to be less saturated than gel inks, which are more vibrant. The ballpoints were too grey and the gel inks have tended to skip way too much to be any good.I practiced with the purple .7mm pens and liked the results. The .5mm pens have even cleaner lines — the ink doesn’t pool as much as with the .7 mm pen; and there’s minimal skipping; and the blacks are nice and dark.

I hope other artist community discovers these pens and put them to good use!