I started this drawing several days ago because I was having a discussion with another artist about how to render these things, and thought it would be easier to show than explain. As it happened the recipient of my would-be wisdom understood my verbal explanation just fine (not to mention that the drawing failed to make my point about line variation very well just wasn't that good.)

2019-20 Japanese appt sketchbook page 5.5 x 8.25", photographed (& probably drawn) 26jan21; cropped & some minor adjustments

There wasn't really much point in continuing with it, but then I decided I needed to refill one of my Shaffer calligraphy pens. No matter what I do, unless I'm continuously doing a lot of calligraphy, the ink just simply dries out. Fortunately it's permanently water soluble, so washing water in them loosens the residue, but then there's this tedious inbetween stage between highly dilute old ink and highly dilute new ink, which I usually just use up by coating a piece of scrap paper until the ink comes in at full strength. But as I scraped the pen over paper, impatiently waiting for this to happen, I figured I might as well use the dilute ink & experiment.

Sketchbook page, 5.5 x 8.25" microns & shaeffer calligraphy pen. completed 05feb21

So that's what I did with this drawing. I'm not sure it's any better—the shading on the caps is truly hideous (though I suppose I could fix it with the judicious application of a water brush) but I had fun layering the grays, which is not generally a technique I use.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.