Sketchbook Wednesday #4

 I've been busy lately, haven't been sketching every day but really that's no excuse. A sketch doesn't have to take long, even a ten minute sketch is worth doing if that's all the time you have. I did manage to get a couple of sketches done.

The first sketch was an experiment in using alcohol markers.  Previously I had only ever used Tombow ABT markers which are water based. From videos I've seen it seems there are primarily two advantages to alcohol markers, they blend more easily and you can apply acrylic paint pens on top since the acrylic paint pens won't activate the alcohol marker marks like they do to water based marker marks. Based on that info I decided I wanted to try them but not really being a marker guy I didn't want to spend nearly $6 each for Copics. Based on videos it appears Touchnew brand markers are comparable in performance and a lot cheaper so I tried to buy some, but I wasn't paying close attention and ended up with a set by Dabo Shobo. These markers didn't seem to blend well at all, also I didn't really like the chisel tip, I much prefer a brush tip. I also still struggled to get the acrylic paint pen to cover well.  Whether these issues are due to poor pen quality or my lack of skill with markers I can't really say since I have been unable to find a good review of these pens by someone with more experience.  The subject is a custom car circa 1950 Chevy old school taildragger style.

"Custom 1948 Ford"
Pen and watercolor, 6" X 11"
Click to purchase

The second sketch is a line and wash (watercolor) sketch of a 1948 Ford coupe also in a traditional taildragger style. I used watercolor instead of markers for coloring the body, something I'm a little more comfortable with and probably would be better for sketching live at car shows since you don't need a big case full of colors, instead a small palette can hold them all, (assuming you are competent at color mixing).  The line work was done with a Tombow soft tip Fudenosuke pen.  I love this little pen because it makes it easy to create loose thin and thick line work. I also used a couple Tombow ABT brush pens for some shading and color accents. I made this sketch in a book with tear out perforations so I've decided to make it available for purchase, click on the image to go to the ebay listing.