I’m rounding out the week of Tombow Calligraphy Brush Pen and Pentel squeezy brush pen sketches with a sketch I made while watching TV.
Often, while watching TV I’ll stop the TV show and sketch. Other times I’ll let it run, treating the show more like an exercise in capturing an ever changing live subject. This works best if you are watching a talk show and if you know the rhythm of the particular show’s use of camera angles. Close up on host, cut to guest, wide shot of both, back to guest, etc. If you know this you can time your look up at the screen to coincide with a focus on your subject. Then you can use your memory to get it down on paper while they cycle through their shots.
Even when it doesn’t work right it’s still a lot of fun to give it a try.
For this quick sketch which took about 3 minutes to get the outline down and then another minute or so to put in the shading, I worked first with the Tombow Calligraphy Brush Pen which has a solid fiber tip that is a bit flexible. I like it and the ink is pigmented and I can wash over it right away. Which is what I did with washes of ink that I made by sliding my Niji Waterbrush tip along the top of a thick Pentel Brush Pen—of the squeezy type (black barrel) which has the dye-based, water-soluble ink. (This particular Pentel Brush Pen is also not lightfast, but that doesn’t bother me.) I was working on an 8-inch square sheet of Fluid Hot Press Watercolor paper.
I like the looseness, even though some bits are pretty wonky. I’m hoping that I can get some of that looseness in my other work.
One advantage to sketching this way from the TV is that other folks can watch TV with you because you aren’t always stopping the show. Give it try sometime if there’s no one around to be a life model.
