Every day in May no. 7

A tiny drawing again, this time of my little Minetta camera. My dear M gave me this a few years ago, he found it in a flea market. I thought this was just a toy camera, very small (about 6 x 3,5 cm, front view) and incredibly cute. Today, for no reason at all, I thought I´d Google it, and see if I could find any info about it. Turns out this is an actual camera, manufactured in Japan in many variants under many names, starting after WW2. This type is from about 1960.

Shooting motion pictures in those days was complicated and expensive, and someone got the idea to split the 35 mm film in half and use it as 17,5 mm film in slightly modified film cameras. A little loss in image quality, obviously, but the amount of copies of movies that could be shown in cinemas increased. With the 17,5 mm film suddenly available as a new format, someone thought "why not use it for still photography as well?", and invented these little cameras.

Photography was an expensive hobby too, and the Minetta and other cameras like it made it possible even for low income citizens to own a camera.

I think this is kind of a cool story, and now I´m wondering if the camera still works? The mechanism in it work, but it probably has light leaks all around... I don´t think there is any film available for it, either, but I am thinking of cutting an ordinary 35 mm film in half just to try it out...

The drawing is the same format as the previous few posts, Faber-Castell technical pen and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 6

I´m reading Sarah Simblet´s "The Drawing Book" right now (if you have not seen this book - go check it out! Now!) and found this really inspiring little exercise. In a drawing of a dog, she starts out with a dip pen and very diluted ink, and draws a few sketchy lines to capture the shape of the dog. Then she uses more and more concentrated ink to define the drawing as she goes along.

I decided to try this today. I used an old bottle of a reddish brown fountain pen ink (water soluble) and diluted it with a lot of water and started sketching with a dip pen. Once I got the shape of it, I added more and more ink to the ink solution, and kept drawing.

I kind of like the result, and above all, I like the process. You can start out really cautiously, and because your first lines are so light, they won´t disturb the drawing later on. A fun way to build up a drawing.

Dip pens are fantastic. No other pens (not even the Lamy Safari Extra Fine, even though I love drawing with it) give such varied lines. You just put a little more pressure on the pen, and the line width grows immediately, leaving traces of your own temperament in the drawing. Lovely.

The drawing is 8 x 12 cm, dip pen and some brownish ink (don´t know the brand) on a small Moleskine Watercolor page. The drawing is photographed three times during the process, with the camera´s white balance in the completely wrong mode, hence the blue edges...

Every day in May no. 5

Just a tiny drawing today, not even a whole page of the Moleskine watercolor sketchbook (the small one). Hard pencil is not the right tool for the paper in the Molie. I added some stronger darks with a softer one at the end, but of course the grainy watercolor paper isn´t ideal for pencil drawings at all.

I find it harder and harder to work in this small format. I suspected when I bought the small Moleskine quite a while ago, that it would be too small for me. I was right, I had not used more than three pages in it before I started with this May-challenge. I had no plan to do all the May drawings in it but now that I have started using it, I might as well go on.

Every day in May no. 4

We went to a classical concert tonight, and I brought my small Moleskine Watercolor to do today´s May-thing. It was kind of dark where we sat, so I couldn´t see properly what I was drawing. I guess that adds to the sketchiness of it all...

A concert hall is a great place to draw in, unless you have some people sitting right next to you, looking over your shoulder. Tonight was perfect, we had five seats to ourselves. We sat at quite a distance from the scene, though, and I always find it harder to draw people if you are too far away. It is much more difficult to see the details and there is no way to measure them with your pen - you cover ten people with your pen cap alone from that distance...

Anyway, it was a great concert with music by Berwald, Stenhammar and Sibelius. Beautiful.


The drawings are of different sizes, but all drawn on a small Moleskine Watercolor page (8 x 12 cm) with a Lamy Safari and Noodler´s Lexington Grey.

Every day in May no. 3

Another day completed! This one is a painting without any drawing underneath, made with an extremely flabby Niji Waterbrush (I am trying to buy new ones, but they are not easy to find where I am at...) and watercolors.

8 x 12 cm, watercolors on small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 2

Still holding on to the new habit of drawing something every day in May - phew, two whole days done!

Today I visited a museum here in Stockholm together with some students from school, and this nice fella stood there and showed himself from his sunny side, so I had to draw him. Cute, huh?

Drawing is 8 x 12 cm. Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey, some splashes of watercolor and a sticker on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 1

French Toast Girl has started a quest, Every Day in May, and I (among others) have joined in. It´s simply about drawing or painting something every day in the month of May.

I hate taking on challenges like this. I am usually too lazy or too busy to promise to draw every day, but I thought it sounded ok to try it for a month. That shouldn´t be too hard, right? Well, we´ll see...

The drawing is 12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolors in a small Moleskine Watercolor.