Color Brush Trees

Christmas Day, 25th December 2003, page 1 of 2
Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary

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After present-opening and before our Christmas dinner how can I resist sketching the trees of the shrubbery seen from the bay window of my brother-in-law's Victorian house?

A tall beech and a couple of sycamores are amongst the trees that grow with an understorey of evergreen hollies and variegated laurels.

Helen and John, a couple of artist friends, have tracked down - and given me as a Christmas gift (thanks!) - this Pentel Color Brush, intended for designing and sketching, which is available with sepia ink cartridges. As with the waterbrush which I recently started using, squeezing the body of the pen controls the flow of ink and you can use a tissue to remove excess ink from the brush.


Three things to be aware of:

• the ink doesn't dry instantly so you need to be careful not to smudge what you've just drawn (as I did on this drawing of the bare branches of a Turkey oak, right).

• The ink tends to come through the page a little; at least it does on the cartridge paper I'm using.

• Pentel warn that colours may fade when exposed to daylight or artificial light for long periods.

None of which should be a problem for sketchbook or illustration work.

richard@willowisland.co.uk

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