Leaf Ghost #150

The last time I was at Scraps, I bought a bag of Speedball A-0 pen nibs. Though I really only need one, it’s nice to have backups (or spares if anyone else wants one).

This is my first time using a broad metal tip since #46. Though the C-0 didn’t work all that well, the A-0 was much better, much more like working with Copics. Winsor & Newton Ultramarine (the darker of the two blues) was a bit thick for the nib, but the Blue, Orange and Sunshine Yellow flowed smoothly. 

To be sure, mistakes were made. I got out of sync with the pattern and used the wrong ink on two of the upper left squares. Naturally I was using the darker color at the time, so I couldn’t fix it by going over it with the correct color. Also some smearing around spots where the ink puddled, which just means I need to let everything dry before moving on to the next color.

As this turned out to be an experimental piece, I decided to try a Copic C7 Cool Grey marker for the drop shadow. The combination of alcohol-based ink on water-based ink produced some odd spotting, so I probably wouldn’t try that again unless I specifically wanted the effect.

Still, it’s nice to get such vivid colors with minimal cleanup.

Leaf Ghost # 149

Back to Poe, finishing “The Raven” and moving on to “The Cask of Amontillado.”

One thing I noticed while working on the poem was that it seemed awkward when quotation marks butted up against each other. That isn’t a problem with normal text layout, but with the line breaks removed they looked odd.

With that in mind, I’ve switched to the British style of single marks. It’s one more thing I need to remember to do while I’m working, but it looks a little better in this context.