My Favourite Tool...

for drawing, at least, is a Pentel Brush Pen. They're not cheap, exactly, but they behave like a brush, and the variety of marks obtainable by using them is amazing. This drawing was made this morning in my sketchbook; as usual, I was early for the therapist and spent the time taking a couple of photos and drawing. Then, of course, there are calligraphy pens, coloured pens and all sorts of other excitements.

What struck me about this drawing, or doodle, really, was that it demonstrates what I've been learning recently about mark making, design, repetition and scale. The more I do, the more I learn, and, interestingly, the less I read. What it seems to need now is a colour wash...and perhaps a few more lines...

The thing about birthdays is that you get to buy yourself wonderful things; in this case, The Surface Designer's Handbook by Holly Brackman. I've purged my dyeing books long since, but this one gave me three ideas in the space of as many minutes, so it seemed a good way to spend the voucher Andrew and Sarah gave me. I also bought the last in the series of books on Boudica by Manda Scott. Boudica would have been very familiar with the landscapes I live in now. She was, as the Scots say, a bonnie fechter (a good fighter; though the Scots means something more than that, that I find untranslatable).