'STUFF THIS YEAR SO FAR'
DRAWINGS (2016-B)
This Volume comprises 30 drawings - black line using broad dip-pen and ink, digitally edited and rendered.
The following series of, what I call, 'aphorisms' or 'epigrams' - although Robert Hughes', 'dinkuses' [see note 1 below], might be more useful - are drawings I made in January and February this year, using a dip pen with William Mitchell's Script Pen #0864 size 2 (1.5mm round) nibs and black ink, a fine Japanese calligraphic ink, 'Platinum Carbon Black', which I then scanned and digitally (edited and) rendered.
The dip pen and, more particularly, the nibs that I use were purchased from Cornelissen & Son of Bloomsbury. Very interestingly, Cornelissen's shop was the last refuge of one Mr Phillip Poole, the famous pen nib supplier of Covent Garden - referred to in the passages below - where he was able to set up a stall in the famous Bloomsbury shop after his in Drury Lane, was plundered by developers. When I met him he mistook me for some important international illustrator and warmly sold me my current (now dwindling) supply of William Mitchell nibs. He vanished soon after (around 2000) and even the current shopkeepers have little memory of him.
The ink I am using is a fine Japanese calligraphic ink, 'Platinum Carbon Black', which I purchase from my wonderful local art supplies shop, Sennelier, just up the road, on the Quai Voltaire, on the banks of the Seine in Paris.
The paper is Windsor & Newton, smooth bright white, 170gms, perfect for ink - A3 sketchbook format trimmed to 35cm x 30cm.
More:
Some research, see: http://coventgardenmemories.org.uk/page_id__91_path__0p40p.aspx
"There were a lot of funky shops. One only sold pen nibs. The famous illustrators and cartoonists of the day all bought the nibs for their art pens from there. The owner was 'a lovely old man who was there for who knows how many years' and then one day, at the end of the rent review, his rent rose so much that he was forced out."
From: Tom Cook, Covent Garden: 'A place where people live'
See also, Cinders Macleod on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/search/philip%20poole
"Mr Poole had a pen shop on Drury Lane, Covent Garden: the old style pen shop with drawers and drawers of pen nibs. I got my 291s from him. He told me the 291s required a 17 step process - cutting, shaping, finishing. The new 291s required a 2 step process. That's why they were so inferior. Many famous cartoonists including Ralph Steadman got their nibs from Philip. They bought in bulk. I think it was Ralph Steadman who bought out all the rest of Philip's 291s when he heard the shop may be closing. I'll never forgive him.
Philip had a folder of all the cartoons we sent him. He showed me once. All the greats were there. He liked me - liked my politics. He was a communist in his early days - part of a group that put on communist street theatre in Whitechapel in the 1920s. He had to leave his Drury Lane shop because as Covent Garden got fancy, so did his rent.
Cornelissen's art shop on Great Russell Street gave him a space in the back of their shop. It always made me sad, visiting him here. It wasn't the same. He wasn't the same. I wrote a poem about it. It wasn't long after the move that Philip got sick. When I came to London from Glasgow in 2000 to contribute to a political cartoon exhibition at the OXO building, I popped in the see Philip. My cartoonist friend Steve Marchant took a picture of us. That's the last time I saw Philip."
NOTE 1 - dinkus (plural dinkuses)
1. A small drawing or artwork used for decoration in a magazine or periodical.
2. Used to refer to something one cannot or does not wish to name specifically.
synonyms: object, article, item, artefact, commodity, device, etc.
3. A gadget, device, or object whose name is unknown or forgotten. Dutch. German.
4. In some other languages, I believe, 'dinkus' could mean 'dick-head' - how awful!
