A Comfortable Place

 The first sketch of 2025! I had a couple things to get in Lawrence. I also have to prepare for a presentation I need to give next week to some land surveyors. Hoping to also have time for a sketch. The Nostalgia Room was recently recommended to me by a friend and she was right. This place has a nice neighborhood vibe and eclectic furnishings. The music is laid back. Two other patrons with others that come and go. 

I settle in and do my studying. Then I have enough time to sketch. Decided to keep it as pen and ink (no color). Some drawings just have that feel. It was a good day. I'll be back.

Drawing with a fude nib fountain pen and Noodlers Lexington Gray ink, text with marker.

Coffee Shop Time

 A friend and I took a lunch break at a local coffee shop. We talk a lot and sketch some. This time I HAD to get some sketching done. The year is wrapping up and I didn't realize until now that I haven't sketched in December. Oops. I like the sound of having a sketch-every-day goal (as Koosje Koene suggests), it doesn't work for me. However, a month is WAY to long of a lapse.

So, we sit down. What to sketch? It's not exciting but I liked this potato chip bag. I love the yellow/red color choice. I also had a new pen to try out. In a recent post by Vicky Williamson I noticed she used a short fat fountain pen. I left a message to find out what it was and she told me a Majohn Little Fat Man with fude nib. I suffer from a common ailment of art supply envy. I HAD to have one, so I got online and bought one. Just got it. Had to use it. This is the first sketch with it. It won't be my favorite but does have a fun factor when using it.

Out for Coffee

 My grief support group still gets together socially, though a small group. Our class started with six but one washed out (it was too soon since his loss). Unfortunately two others passed away recently. That leaves three but sometimes one doesn't show up. That was the case today. Just Sherry and I.  She came ready to sketch and I just had my sketch journal and a pencil and ballpoint pen. We sketched anyway. It was a lesson for me that I'm not restricted to my favorite kit to sketch. I forgot how nice graphite is!

A happy accident in composition: the hippo seems concerned to have the Grim Reaper looking his way.

Pick Only One (Really?)

 I recently downsized my 27' RV trailer to an 18' RV trailer. It's just me now and the old RV just had too many memories. Much less storage! I can't have ALL my coffee making methods on board. So . . . which one should I pick?! I can rule out the drip maker because it's just too large. I like the sentimental value of the percolator, but the French press is so darn simple, but it doesn't keep things warm. I just don't know.

Fountain pen, watercolor pencils and water brush. 

Coffeehouse Discovery

 I'm always on the lookout for new coffee shops, and I love to travel. Therefore, I combine these two interests and revel when I succeed. On a drive to son Brian's place I spied a food option listing sign on I-70 that mentioned a Casey Coffee Company. Casey, IL is JUST off of I-70. Always room for coffee, so I stopped. It's a little town of  2376 but one that is big into self promotion in a neat way without being overbearing. They have a whole list of "worlds largest" features to see. This just calls out for sketching. 

I fell in love with the world's largest mailbox. They built this thing so you can walk up the stairs and look down at Main Street from the front edge! And this thing was in view of a window seat at Casey Coffee. So I ordered a coffee and sketched. I sketched it too large just because I was too engaged with it. That happens to me.

The coffee shop is great! On my return trip I stopped for breakfast (oatmeal, choose your toppings). I'll be back.

Fountain pen, watercolor pencil with waterbrush. 

No Spark Joy

I've been making strides to get rid of "stuff". Our daughter gave me a copy of Marie Kondo's book on "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up". I can't bring myself to apply it everywhere, but she makes a persuasive case that we don't need to keep all the things we have. I even like the challenge it presents to think it all through and question the past. She has a better way to fold cloths in your dresser. Her acid test for keeping something is great. Does it "spark joy". Love it!

So, I made this sketch for some things that don't spark joy anymore. The CD player is very very old by technology standards. It was the first generation mobile player. It still plays but the sound skips with the slightest bump! Not sure if there is someone out there that would find joy in this or not. It's not junk, though (yet).

The mini waffle iron never really sparked joy. I found it in a discount bin. Such a buy! Really marked down . . . such a steal! That little voice in my head said 'don't' but I did. Never used it.

The coffee mug I never wanted. I found it at a local art/craft fair. The artist had two mugs. Both different but roughly similar. I fell in love with the other one and she made me a (marginal) deal if I bought both. The other one still 'sparks joy'. This one not.

So, these will all go to Goodwill. Every little bit helps clear the house. We have a basement, though, that I need to hit, and I've been avoiding it. I want to develop my editing skills before I/we hit it to improve my confidence because it will be tough.

Quality Not

They just don't make things like they used to! In the last two months we aged out our coffee maker and toaster. I still try to support local stores, so we went to Walmart to replace the coffee maker. Mr. Coffee has been at it a lot of years so I purchase a standard 12-cup version. It brewed fine, but the built-in clock ran three times faster than normal. The 2-hour hotplate shut-off in under one hour. That also meant the timer start fails. Many tries - many fails. I then did a Google search and found that this brand has had this problem for the last 1.5 years. But they have great customer service. A quick message chat on their Facebook page and they sent a replacement. The replacement works great. It just seems like a good quality assurance program would have caught this and saved everyone a headache. I also had to throw away the new-but-defective brewer. That's a lot of landfill!

Then the toaster gave up the ghost. Both of these had over 10 years of service so I don't fault them. The new toaster from Target wasn't the entry level so I expected it to work. However, the lever to load the bread failed to stay down after a couple days use. I had to hold it down manually to complete the toast cycle. It's junk, too! And yet such a pretty thing. The Oster company isn't as helpful. I need to deliver it to the local authorized service center, which is 60 miles away and requires proof of purchase. Who keeps receipts these days? Things should work! The credit card printout for the month lists it, though. Tomorrow we're going to KC for some shopping. The service center said they will determine if they can fix it or have Oster send me a replacement. I suspect it will end up OK, but what ever happened to quality construction!?

This is my first home sketch of the year. It feels great! I don't like being away from sketching for as long as I have, but that's life. The font I used on the title and the appliance descriptions came from a fountain pen Facebook group posting. I thought it was a beautiful font, so I'm trying it out.

Urban Sketchers KC February Sketch Crawl

Well, I actually missed this month's crawl due to the bookbinding class I was in. I'm not complaining, but I did want to go to the Roasterie Factory coffee shop and roasting factory. I've wanted to see their facility for years. So, when my class was over Saturday, before I drove the 60 miles home, I went there by myself and did my own sketch crawl. I love the plane on the roof but didn't feel like going outside in the cold to sketch it. A hot coffee and PB cookie sounded much better while I sketched.

I love the coffeehouse environment. Mid-afternoon Saturday they had quite a crowd. Retail shop with gift-type items. Factory that gives tours. Cafe.  I just wish they had a place to set and see the plane. The Roasterie sells coffee nationwide now. I've watched them grow over the years. Several restaurants in Topeka now use them. They do good work.

Business Travel, San Antonio

Most of my business travel is in the Kansas/Missouri/Arkansas/Oklahoma area, but this week I had a committee meeting in San Antonio. Been there twice before so I knew about the River Walk. I brought my sketchbook supplies again in hopes of getting out.

The challenge was finding a spot to sit and sketch. The real estate along the River Walk is all high dollar stuff and they want you either walking or dining. Eventually I found a spot at street level looking down at the river walk. Met a neat little boy on the flight down, Ricardo, and met my first Uber Driver, too. Also grabbed a sketch of an old building that will be my next post. Good trip.

Six Eyes

It's my first sketch in my freshly bound journal! Anxiety about starting a new journal never hits me. I like binding them, I like using them. The topo map is the recycled end paper I was talking about.

The subject of this post is my new reading glasses. The bifocals weren't working for the PC monitor at work. I had to tilt my head back too far for the bifocals to work, or take them off and have blurry-but-functional vision. These work much better. I sketched on one of my lunch breaks.

The paper is BFK Rives in this journal, maybe 120 lb. (forgot to note weight). First time to use it and its working nicer than the ArchesVelin text wove of my last journal. Velin was great for watercolor pencils and waterbrush and fountain pen light sketching but wasn't so nice with pencil or fountain pen writing.

Time to settle in and get some sketching done. Hope it doesn't take as long to finish this journal as my last one did (a.k.a. " I need to sketch more often").

Lunchhour Coffee

I'm lucky. Topeka has several coffeeshop choices. Good choices. We used to live in a town of 14,000 in central Kansas and there was no 'real' coffeeshop. When I travel for the job to rural electric cooperatives around Kansas I spend time in really small towns. Love the small towns, but I miss my coffee. That's kinda shallow of me. But that's how it is. I like my daily routine of visiting a nice coffeeshop at lunch to have a cup and read or sketch. It's my little world for a short time. It's a splurge but as long as my paycheck can cover it (it's just a 12-ounce coffee, no cream, no specialty drinks unless it's a celebration) I'll continue.

On another topic, I'm trying to find my new sketching mojo. I know I'll continue. I'm hooked. But when in the day and for how long. Will I keep posting? What's my new routine to make sure it all gets done? Right now I'm grabbing time when I can. This is being posted on a Saturday morning before I get real work done around here. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. In my posting hayday I spend way too much time and late nights getting it all done. I need a better balance. When I evaluate all the ways I spend time, evaluate my collection of hobbies, I conclude that sketching makes the short list of 'must do's.

Christmas a'Comin

Wilma had a meeting to attend in Salina, which is a hundred miles west of us, for most of the day. Salina is a nice smaller town (bigger town if you live in a typical central Kansas town) we like to visit. I invited myself along so I could spend time urban sketching. I'm a member of Urban Sketchers Midwest and wanted some urban sketch time. I live in a rural area and Topeka is close but is big enough that it loses some of the small-town urban atmosphere that I like to sketch. Salina still has a neat downtown area. All the storefronts aren't full, but there is still healthy commerce going on. I had a splendid day, one that I couldn't have planned better. Sometimes you just throw yourself out there and sometimes everything clicks. My favorite interchange with the very young daughter of the coffee house owners, who walks around talking to us patrons, most of which I could tell were regulars. She had her tutu on over sweat pants and running shoes. We had a nice chat and shared a cookie (don't worry, the owners were watching to make sure the stranger acted properly).

Bike & Sketch

These Fall days have been great! The colors make me stare, which can get dangerous when driving. That's why I decided to pull a day's vacation and pedal around Topeka for a day. It's been TOO long since I've sketched (please don't look at the posting date of my last entry) (I told you not to!) so I wanted to merge the two activities into one meandering day sketching through the urban and rural bike trails.

We live southeast of town, and we're lucky to live close to the Landon Trail (a rail-to-trail). I can catch it into town and pick up the Shunga Trail along the Shunganunga Creek to spread out around town. This ended up being a full day's jaunt. I need to do this more often. Temperature was moderate, air was filled with the smell of dropping leaves, and the trails don't have much traffic. Coffee breaks are required and my pace is casual by design. Too bad this isn't a paying gig.

I did the pen sketching and color work on-site and added text once I get home, after I've had time to absorb it all. Like I said, it's been too long. Really miss the sketching routine, so maybe I can motivate myself to get back in the saddle. I've determined that I'll be sketching the rest of my life, but I just don't know how often since other duties call, too. Choices no different than everyone else has.

New Pen

This journal entry is just one more combination of pen, ink, journal and coffee house. I'm at Juli's Coffehouse, taking a couple lunch breaks to test a new PEN! Gee, I love to do this. I thought I was happy with my current art supplies. But no, a friend (that's you, Cheryl) mentioned the Noodler's Flex Nib pen (at only $20, gouletpens.com). She knew I use a Namiki (msrp $180). Now I'm not proud of what I paid for the Namiki. I'm not a fountain pen snob. I'm a pen and ink addict with no 10-step program to save me. Anyway, Cheryl wanted to know how these two pens would compare and if I would conclude that the Namiki is worth the money.

Short answer - the Namiki is worth the money from the standpoint of quality material and construction and it's visual presentation. This thing's a piece of art and joy to use. And it PERFORMS. I'll pay for performance. That's probably why I'll never have a $350 fountain pen (which I lust for), because they may be build better yet, but won't perform better.

Back to the Noodler's. I'd like to meet the company CEO. He wanted a fountain pen for the common person, at a reasonable price so that the fountain pen could take its rightful place as a price-viable mode of written communication, and he did it! The features that mean the most to me - nice fit in hand (I like the fuller barrel of the Ahab), impressive ink flow rate (maybe too fast for some when you spring the tip for a wide mark), variable width (easy to shift from fine to broad), massive ink capacity, and colorful bodies.

Now, to get to a $20 product you need to shave some corners. They do that through cheaper parts and design. I don't know about fountain pen design (what you don't see in the pen) but from a performance standpoint the Namiki is not 9 times better. I'd be happy with the Noodler's alone. I love them both. I think I saw on the Goulet website they refer to the Noodler's pen as a "novelty" pen. Not sure what that means. It's a full function pen that does everything I want. I'm hooked. I'll be using both fountain pens.

Spend what you're comfortable spending on a pen. It's how you use it that counts. Both pens will get me to the paradise of pen and ink sketching.

New Coffee Shop

Well, Thanksgiving came and went. Now it's the day after. We don't do crazy shopping for Black Friday but sometimes we'll hit a store or two. This time Wilma wanted to go to a sewing store and I remembered this coffee shop next door. We both get something out of this deal. We had a nice time and I got a sketch out of the deal. I was able to do the whole thing before leaving the coffee shop. Those always feel good.

Spring Break

It's a little late, but here's my journaling for our Spring Break this year. Went to see our son at his new job, and it's in Seattle.


For this trip I didn't get to sketch much at all. Too busy and now time to myself. So, I took plenty of pictures for sketching after we got home. It's not my preferred way, mainly because I take too long to post-process everything (witness the slow posting). When I sketch in the moment, it's finished when the moment passes and not several weeks later. But, it's still fun to sketch it at home.

Seattle was fun to explore. Our son had the itinerary set, and all we needed to do was keep up. I've got sketching locations figured out for our next visit(s). We now have a feel for what Seattle is. Experienced some typical cloudy/rainy time and some partly sunny time. This Kansas boy wants to do some big boat sketching, and I want to research the different types of deep sea fishing and crabbing boats so I can understand the equipment differences.


I think it would take a lot of visits before I'd get bored of Seattle.

First Latte of 2010

Another year begins. Of course, that calls for a cup of joe. Since it's a snowy holiday, I made it at home, and decide on a latte, using some homemade marshmallows that my daughter and I made this week. They work Great. I've also been pondering what I did last year that I wanted to get done and what I might want to do next year. I don't get wrapped up in making a New Year's resolution but I do like to give it a think. Hope everyone gets a chance to spread their creative wings this year . . . without pulling a muscle.

Just For Fun

Had some fun over the last week. Entered a promotional competition at Starbucks for their new VIA instant coffee product. Made a 2-minute video and posted it on http://www.youtube.com and www.starbucks.com/via (http://www.starbucks.com/via/occasion/inthewild/recent/video#sorting-anchor and titled "Using Starbucks VIA in the Kansas Wilderness"). Also entered a recipe for a hot drink I put together (http://www.starbucks.com/via/occasion/recipes/recent/story#sorting-anchor and titled "Wilderness Latte"). No way I'll win in a national competition, but it was fun doing it and I got my 5 minutes of fame by having it visible on the Starbucks website.

New Bar

Ran into a new type of bar. A Cereal Bar. Never heard of it. I was out shooting some B&W film in my SLR camera (becoming a lost art) in cold weather and needed to warm up. I had already planned to stop at Java Break for a latta because it's my hippi coffee shop. It's in Lawrence (15 miles away), home of KU, in one of the few Democratic counties in Kansas. There are plenty of liberal types. I'm about as traditional as it gets, being a utility engineer and Republican. This joint is a 24-hour dive in the basement of an old building in the downtown area. Their patrons are of all walks of life and I like it. They just put in this Cereal Bar. My early-20s DD can live on cereal, and the barista said she thought cereal should be its own food group. I need to come back another day to try it.

Trip, Part 1

Finally on the road! All the planning is over. We've begun the vacation and we'll just deal with anything that happens or with any plans that must change as they happen. I've seen a fellow EDM member draw a sketch similar to this and always liked it so I took the chance to make my own. Wilma took a turn at driving as I started lookin' around.

After a night stay at a motel, we hit Chicago and get on the Empire Builder train to Glacier N.P. and parts beyond. It July 4! That means we see fireworks from the train. Not exactly ideal seats, but still neat.




Here's observations from the train. 30 hours is quite a while to sit and think and read and watch. I like it. The coffee is pretty good, too.





Our first night in the park is at Lake McDonald Lodge. We can finally relax! The train doesn't get in until close to 9 p.m., so we pick up our rental car and drive the short mileage along the shore of Lake McDonald to lodge. Room as scheduled. They have a fire going in the fireplace and the scent riding on the cool air greets us. The showpiece of the lobby, to me, is the huge fireplace. My eyes are drawn to it so that's what I decide to sketch before we leave in a couple days. I think I'll try to have a minimum of one sketch and one picture for each of our lodgings. We'll see if I can keep it up.