Art Journal - Ryn Shell

Landscape Drawing with Fountain Pen and Ink - Old Shed Clunes - Australian Landscape

8/12/2021

Fountain pen and ink country building landscape drawing. Learn how to draw a landscape that features a tumbling down shed on the outskirts of the historic old gold mining town of Clunes, Victoria, Australia. Thank you to Daryl Raine for the reference photos that I used to create this sketch.

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Fountain Pens and Arthritic Fingers

I have arthritic fingers. You won't want to use any other writing tool once you get a good fountain pen and ink combination. I like what they describe as a 'wet' nib and ink combination. I love how the ink lays down on the page just by gliding the pen without applying downward pressure as you need to with most writing and drawing tools.

Djadjawurrung

It annoys -me exceedingly when I look up the history of a location in Australia and read: This town was discovered in 1836.
Of course Clunes wasn't discovered then. It is offensive and insulting to the First Australians that so many Australian history books ignore the greater history of this ancient land and its custodians.
Djadjawurrung or Dja Dja Wurrung, also known as the Jaara or Jajowrong people and Loddon River tribe, is a native Aboriginal tribe which occupied the watersheds of the Loddon and Avoca rivers in the Bendigo region of central Victoria, Australia. They were part of the Kulin alliance of tribes.
There were 16 clans, which adhered to a patrilineal system.
Like other Kulin peoples, there were two moieties: Bunjil the eagle and Waa the crow.
Major Thomas Mitchell was the first white person to discover Clunes in 1836. At that time it is estimated that 900–1900 Djadja wurrung people lived in the district.

The first devastation of the Djadja Wurrung people occurred in 1789 and 1825 when smallpox, introduced first from the north by Macassan traders, swept through the district. As white settlement came to the district, encouraged by Donald Cameron in 1839, epidemics further decimate the First Australians. Donald Cameron took up a pastoral run, and renamed the Aboriginal land he took, as 'Clunes,' after his birthplace in Scotland. The name in Gaelic means 'a green place' or 'a pleasant place.
I will share more of the history of the Djadjawurrung people soon.

How I chose and adapted to my New Sketching Fountain Pens.

I joined the Facebook group, Fountain Pens Australia to gain the advice I needed to choose fountain pens to add to my professional quality art supplies. I chose the Lamy 2000 from reading through the group's back notes. My gold nib choice was oblique broad.

Then I chose the Platinum 3776 Century with extra-fine nib as the second pen. I am delighted. they are both smooth, with a good ink-flow for an artist working on quality well-sized watercolour paper. I can achieve a variability of a mark with the slightest change of hand position or pressure. The Platinum 3776 Century, being second-hand and recently flushed clean, worked instantly with its first fill of Platinum Carbon black ink.

The Lamy 2000 required a learning curve. I'm so glad I'd read up on how some fountain pens need easing into the job.
Firstly, I had no idea how to fill the pen with ink. When I thought it was filled, it wouldn't work. So I attempted to empty it, to discover it was empty. I did the flush with soapy water, rinse and discovered the technique of filling correctly, and tried again. Still no ink flow. I tried a few times to write with a dry nib, even tried to express some ink through the nib. It still didn't flow when I wrote. So, I treated it as a dip pen for several sentences of writing, then everything 'freed itself up' and I was off and sketching.

At the beginning of the sketch, once I'd become confident in varying the way I held the pen, or the subtle variation of pressure, to quickly change the mark the pen made, I discovered the sweet spot, the angle where the pen ceases to apply ink and did not find that this would become a problem. I quickly learn how to best use my tools.

I LOVE my Lamy 2000. I am using it with the De Atramentis Archival Ink.

These two pens are perfect for my needs.

As back up pens, I bought a Pilot desktop extra-fine. It is acceptable, but I'd never pick it up to work with it because of the joy I receive working with a great art tool. The same goes for the Lamy Safari broad nib pen I bought, okay as a spare. A pen I'd feel confident laying about on a disk with other people around. Just not the joy I experienced while using my Lamy 2000.

Funny, when I started in my search for a fountain pen to draw with, I naively thought I would be spending about AU$200. Now, I think I did well having spent around AU$600. on two pens, the ink to fill them, plus a couple of bargain-priced spares.

Sketching with my two new fountain pens. This for my next line and wash demo for YouTube and tutorial accessed from my website. Days of work to go. My evening relaxation work.