Photography

My seasons are spent completely opposite. Winter is when I am mostly outside gathering ideas and I spend almost all of my summer days inside, working. Along with another set of Simple365 b&w photos of my everyday life, today I am sharing a few in-process photos of this book I made as my husband’s birthday present. Included is the photo of the redwoods that inspired it. I have another Outside the Lines art supply review of my favorite brush pen for you today as well.

Simple 365 – Set 14

Here is another set of Simple365 photos from a year of everyday black and white photos. We had rolled into the first few days of October by this time. Naturally, I started taking October-themed photos.

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

I created a page with all the previously shared photos from Simple365. That way I can relive my journey through the year via black and white photos, like in an old photo album.

We made one special trip to Los Angeles to bring our kitties home. The haze of the California desert at Hwy 395!

Tavish, the orange one, Pemberley in the middle, and Merwyn at the front – the merry band of the Ink Torrents Atelier staff!

The colored photo of the winter forest painting that appears in b&w in the Simple365 set. As I mentioned in the previous post, I enjoy working on monochromatic watercolor paintings.

On the last post, I shared process photos of tiny little books and travel inspired paintings. If you missed that post, you can read it here.

I am really happy to share that the last post and other recent posts were featured on these link-ups.

The Really Crafty

Weekend Traffic Jam

Crazy Little Lovebirds

Monday Morning Blog Club

Thank you so much ladies!!

Outside the Lines – Art Supple Review

Kuretake No 8 Fountain Brush Pen

Brush pens are mostly used for calligraphy, but I use them for drawing too. The variable line width that can be created with a brush pen makes it very versatile. On my search for a brush pen that is refillable, I came across the Kuretake N0. 8 fountain brush pen.

To get a feel for the pen, I filled it with permanent fountain pen ink and scribbled a few coffee cups with it. The coffee-addict me approves.

This pen uses cartridges. I like using my own ink. Kuretake does not make a fountain pen converter, but a Platinum Fountain Pen Converter can be used with this pen. It’s the middle piece in this photo; it holds ink for fountain pens and can be filled with any ink of your choice.

Since the pen does not have the capillary action of a fountain pen, I fill the converter by dipping it into an ink bottle directly. Since I use permanent, non-water-soluble ink, I always fill the pen half way. Permanent ink left in a pen can clog it up pretty badly. By filling it halfway, I can use up the ink before that happens. Every now and then, I clean up the pen thoroughly with water between uses.

Once the converter is filled and attached to the pen, I push the ink to the brush tip by turning the screw of the converter gently until I see ink tinting the brush tip. Once that happens, I prime the tip by drawing lines until I get a set of smooth lines starting from thin to thick. Then I know it is ready for use.

I created lines of varying thickness for the trees and then used the same pen for shading. Once I finished drawing the picture, I used watercolor for the background. I kept it super simple by using just two colors.

I really love this pen. It is one of my staples for not only drawing in journals, but for writing too! If you do calligraphy, I highly recommend it for that as well.

Here is a very quick painting I did of the Girl and Her Cat standing at the edge of a forest. It’s a misty day and they love playing in the forest with leaves and butterflies on such days.

A Book from the Time in the Forest

We love visiting the redwood trees in the north of California during the winter months. This is a very narrow and twisty road at Redwood National Park. We drive up there during the early evening hours and stay until the darkness completely envelopes us. The looming darkness makes these towering trees look even taller. Perfect for story time! Sometimes we listen to audiobooks; sometimes we read sitting in the car.

For a book for my husband’s birthday present, and I drew this tiny, tiny picture with our car on that road.

After that I started working on the book itself. Book cloths are paper lined so the glue does not seep into the cloth. I made the book cloth for this book myself using cotton quilting fabric that I had at hand. I left an inset in the cover for the picture. I also added little matching black and silver bands at each end of the book aligned with the spine. Finally I affixed the picture on the cover inside the inset.

I wanted to make something for him with our shared times in mind. The drawing and the book felt right. I should mention that I finished the book way after his birthday. He was surprised, and very happy too. That made my day! Since then, I get requests every now and then to make books for his notes and I am happy to oblige.

While I am looking forward to being outside again, I am using this time to work and spend time with the kitties in my atelier. I hope your summer days are going well.

Until next time,
-Soma

I am linking up with the linky parties on my Links page. Please pay a visit to some of them.

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One of my favorite winter outings is to spend a few days at Yosemite Valley. I would rather go to the Eastern Sierra mountains, but the mountain passes are mostly closed during winter months, which makes for a much longer drive than usual. For a quick winter outdoor fix, the valley is a great place to visit during the weekend. That year, I noticed there was snow forecast right on my birthday which happened to fall on a weekend as well. The closed-in valley is awe-inspiring as is; the snow enhances those jagged rock formations all the more, making the whole area breathtakingly beautiful. So, there I was, spending my birthday playing in the snow with my camera and my sketchbook.

As we left after work, we got there late at night. I usually try to avoid driving during storms as chances of rockfall go up significantly on those mountain roads. Thankfully, by the time we got there at night, the storm had passed, leaving behind a beautiful blanket of snow glittering in the moonlight. This pristine powdered snow would last only for a couple of hours in the morning. I am a night owl, but luring me out at dawn with snow is an easy task. My husband I were out and about shortly after the sun came up behind the surrounding mountains.

El Capitan Meadow is my favorite meadow in the valley. The black oaks there look so beautiful against the golden rock face of El Capitan. I always spend a lot of time there.

Right across, there is another grove of black oaks. That day they looked gorgeous wearing fresh white snow, side-lit by the sun.

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

We walked around the rest of the valley floor with not a care in the world. As the low winter sun melted the snow, the surrounding trees started pelting us with snowballs. I always find that to be a lot of fun and I giggle every time that happens. A snowball fight where the trees always win.

It was a clear, bright day with occasional low clouds here and there. El Capitan is a master of capturing those low clouds.

As day rolled into late afternoon, the usual mist appeared on the meadows. I love to spend that time split up between taking photos and working in the sketchbook while sipping on something hot as it is usually very cold outside.

This is where I drew this scene sitting in the car. Instead of going for the more iconic features, I drew what was in front of me with pencil. I wanted to leave it as-is, but my husband loves inked drawings. So, later on at home, I used an ink pen for all the lines and a white gel pen for the snow.

Here you can really see the lines that I had to remove to make a clean copy for printing. I wasn’t sure at the time, but after quite a bit of work I did manage to remove all the page lines from the drawing and make it into a book.

While playing with different book cover ideas, I fell in love with the French Fold. The cover board wraps over the edge into the inside of the book making it look stylish and elegant. This also makes the binding more stable.

Please Click on the image thumbnails to see the photos.

Shop Notebooks

I hand made all these books in hardcover with French Fold. As the paper I use in these books are great for writing and drawing, I have been using them for my Japanese studies, as well as travel notebooks and art study sketchbooks.

Even without ever mentioning it here, the Yosemite In Winter books have been the bestseller in my shop. That’s the magic of Yosemite, I think. You can purchase the notebooks from my shop.

Season and weather change often, and Yosemite changes with them. During the winter months, a sudden snowstorm decks the trees and the granite faces with powdered snow and turns the narrow valley into an enchanting place. Then the sun peeks out behind the cloud, making for such drama as only mother nature can write. All I need to do is tap into that energy. This one is also the start of my National Park sketchbook series. I am looking forward to drawing the unassuming features of these beautiful parks.

Until next time,
-Soma

I am linking up with the linky parties on my Events And Links page. Please pay a visit to some of them.

Opposite Seasons

Simple 365 – Set 14

Outside the Lines – Art Supple Review

Kuretake No 8 Fountain Brush Pen

A Book from the Time in the Forest

Yosemite In Winter