Watch the Aurora

I'm slowly gathering reference materials and inspirational ideas for "A Patchwork Tale" - my fairy tale/children's book-in-progress. The book will be illustrated with a combination of pen & ink drawings and watercolor paintings. Tonight, I did a small test drawing of an aurora in pen and ink. In color, an aurora would be easier to manage, the greens, reds, and pinks in the sky would give it away immediately. But how to handle those graceful ribbons in black and white? I'm still working on it. But this was my first attempt.

"Watch the Aurora" pen & ink in a
Stillman and Birn epsilon journal

Sketch of the Day - Old Tree at Everett Rotary Park

"Old Tree at Everett Rotary Park"
pen & ink in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon journal.
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2015.

I spent a little time in the sun today sketching. It was a lovely break.

[As a note of interest I was using three different Noodler's fountain pens today each filled with Noodler's Heart of Darkness black ink. Two of the three pens were Noodler's Konrad Flex fountain pens - one in Ebonite with a Goulet #6 non-flex nib and the other with a "regular" Konrad flexible nib. The third was a "Charlie" pen an eyedropper pen with a non-flexible nib.]

Sketch of the day – Carnival at Harvey Field

"Carnival at Harvey Field" pen & ink and marker in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon journal

Sketch in progress

It’s Kla Ha Ya Days this weekend in Snohomish and with the festivities comes a carnival at Harvey Field. I’d been looking at the rides for some days and decided to head in this morning and draw the Ferris wheel before the rides were open. I sat in an empty field and drew for a few hours as people around the fair got ready for the day. It was super nice. :-)

The carnival