American Road: Stories and Music

David reading about his bear encounter

Last night Matt and I went to an author-sponsored event at the EnlightenCafe in Ballard. It was an evening of music and stories on the subject of the American Road. An eclectic series of performances, the evening included banjo music, interpretive dance and readings by authors.

Of course, it gave me the perfect opportunity to sketch. I was experimenting with a series of waterbrushes filled with (1. Higgins Black Magic ink, 2. Noodler’s Blue Nose Bear, 3. plain water), a graphite pencil, and Inktense black pencil.

I was also wearing my new tan pants!

As David was reading about his experiences with a bear encounter while on a motorcycle trip, I managed to spill a few drops of Blue Nose Bear from the cap of my waterbrush onto my pants. Yikes! Funny thing as he had been repeating the word “bear” several times just before the spill. Subliminal suggestion? I wonder… ;-)

Maureen performed interpretive dance. She was dressed as a demon-girl.

The next semi-disaster appeared a few minutes later when I realized that my Ahab ink pen had leaked (!!! – bad pen!!) in my pen case! While cleaning it up I got Platinum Carbon Black ink all over my hands. (Fortunately not my clothes!) For a few minutes my hands looked like a coal miner’s! Carbon Black is harder to remove from your hands than many other inks. I still have some stains on my fingers this morning (the next day) to prove it. Argh!! Once cleaned up, my Ahab worked fine though. I have no idea why it leaked. It never has before.

The bonzai sketch in the right upper corner of the sketch above was a pen test to see how it was working after the spill. Oddly - fine.

So, overall, I would rate the evening as “so-so.”