More brown De Atramentis ink sketches, this time from different lunchtimes in the UC Davis Arboretum, at the end of October 2023. This October has been long, and I’ve been feeling super exhausted a lot of the time, mentally, physically, metaphysically, geographically, mathematically, you name it. I also got my Covid and Flu shots for the season, one in each arm, so it was hard to sleep on my side for a couple of nights. I’ve not been exercising enough, and the stress of the world at large is creeping in. It’s good that we have the Arboretum here at UC Davis, a place to go and relax for a while among the trees and greenery. I sat on a bench out overlooking Lake Spafford, where that tree used to be, and sketched. It was sunny, and the foliage was colourful.

On the next day I also sketched in the Arboretum, on the little path near our building, in sight of the water tower. It’s a nice view this. A very nice view, once you commit it to paper. Draw where you live. This is a nice part of campus. A lot of people on their lunchtime walks, getting their 10,000 steps in, while I let that brown ink jump all over the page. In the lunchtime sketch below, I think it may have been working a little less well for me in places, but I did discover that if you draw directly onto watercolour paint (dry, not still wet), you can’t get a thin exact line as it will expand to create thicker lines, though it does come out that bit darker too. I’m still getting used to fountain pen sketching, and this ink in particular, but it’s fun to experiment. The Arboretum has many bridges like this.