Inspiration

 ^this artwork is not mine. I met this man in the Tangier airport. I had my sketchbook out, he saw it, and then brought his travel journal over. We didn't speak the same language, but we still bonded over art and connected on Instagram.

His travel journal has inspired me to up my urban sketching/travel sketching game. He plans out his compositions and spreads more carefully, tapes bus or museum tickets to the pages, and achieves very expressive line work.

I'd like to work on my pen sketching, to emulate this travel sketching style. The pens I tend to use in my sketchbooks don't hold up well against the rough, watercolor paper. I have a nice fountain pen, but the ink it uses isn't waterproof, so I can't watercolor over it.

I got some adapter reservoirs for my pen and purchased a waterproof black in, so I can set my fountain pen up for this kind of urban sketching.

My disassembled Lamy Safari fountain pen, with the standard Lamy ink cartridge on the top, and the Lamy refillable adapter cartridge below it (with the red end).

The refillable cartridge is super cool. There's a little plunger and rotating the red end moves the plunger in and out. The top cartridge is full of my new waterproof ink.