My latest kick, inspired by this guy’s blog, is sketching with a brush pen, which literally has bristles instead of a felt tip or a nib. Up until this year, actually, I had always associated sketching with pencils, and was surprised to find ink, in various forms, provides a more pleasurable sketching experience. And of all the implements I’ve used recently, I think the brush tops them all. I think what it comes down to is that when you sketch with pencil, you run the risk of being too “precious,” as my drawing teacher says.

50s insurance guy is quite flustered at the sight of a reclining nude from today’s class. I’ve been using ink instead of charcoal for the past few weeks, but this is the first one that wasn’t riddled with mistakes and re-dos, which equals a frustrated jumbly mess of scratched-out indelible lines. Either I need to bring white-out, or start doing more decent (heh) ones like this.

This week’s assignment: A portrait in nature. Since I usually give my bevy of models Fridays off, I walked down the block to this statue of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on the edge of Riverside Park. Drew this with Copic sketch markers and a Kuretake brush pen. Here’s the same statue in real life:

Watching L.A. Story and attempting to sketch Steve Martin.