Choo-Choo 07

Finally, another locomotive. This is the Lafayette, circa 1840.

Between my very short attention span and mild dyslexia, sketching these trains can be more complicated than they should be, but it's good to have another locomotive completed.

Choo-Choo 06

The front half of my John Bull train sketch in my Moleskine Japanese Album.


The back half of the John Bull sketch. I have one more carriage, but my attention span couldn't take it!


Here's the complete train sketch of the John Bull.

I finally took the time to take a good look at the Moleskine Japanese Album. The count of 60 pages includes the front and back of the paper (duh!), so I will only be using 30 pages for my train sets. Thank goodness! It's still a long project, but not as long as I first thought.

My Prismacolor pencils were full-length or close to full-length before the start of this project because they had been used very little. The pencils are now getting a good workout while getting shorter and shorter. Yikes!

Choo-Choo 05

Here's the business end of the John Bull train, and two passenger cars will be added next. Though I should have waited to do the foreground, I got carried away.

Choo-Choo 04

The start of my second train.

Choo-Choo 03

One train completed, and many, many more to go. When I get to the larger trains, fewer passenger cars may be shown to save both space and my sanity.

The Moleskine Japanese Album has 60 pages (or one page folded into 60 sub-pages). 57 pages more to go, and I suspect I will not run out of trains to sketch.

Choo-Choo 02

One of the carriages has been added, and two more will follow. The original train carriages were horse-drawn carriages that were refitted with railroad wheels.

This is the DeWitt Clinton locomotive, circa 1830.

Trying to work with an accordion-folded sketchbook in a scanner and getting a flat scan is beyond my capabilities. Skewed, distorted, poorly lighted photos will be taken in the future.

Choo-Choo 01

With a Moleskine Japanese Album in my possession, a decision needed to be made about its content. Since it's actually one very, very long page, I decided it is time to pull out some of my toy trains. This is a start to a long-term project, and I can go back and forth among the pages to add elements and color whenever I wish. It should be fun, but will it ever be completed?

EDM #6

From my collection of HO trains. Have you ever tried to draw a train as it races around the track?

I need to do things with less detail because I'm not learning much filling in small details; however, it was fun.

I used a copperplate nib on a calligraphy pen with Noodler's ink. Interesting, but I wasn't pleased with the scratchiness of the point and the ink flow. Since I'm not very practiced with ink, I'll try it again another time.