Sketching in Shetland 2026 (Part 1)

Oh how wonderful to be on the clifftop sketching the changing sky!

That sky contained rain. It came down and made a contribution to my picture.

I made a lot of sketches of rocks. Here are eight sketchbook pages in a slideshow. (It might not play on a mobile device.)

The rocks on the West side of Shetland have angles and points. I particularly like the purity of shape of these rocks: the Skerries of Easter Pail. They are almost exact equilateral triangles.

Here are more rocks, all showing the distinctive angle, about 60 degrees.

On this visit, I tried a new medium: dip pen and ink.

The ink is Rohrer & Klinger “Auszeihtusche Schwarz” which means (I think) “drawing ink, black”. German speakers out there, please offer a better translation? It is highly pigmented, waterproof, permanent, shellac based, and for dip pens only. In the picture above I used it with an amazing bamboo pen supplied by L Cornelissen & Son. Great fun. The picture above is large by my usual standards. The ink took a surprisingly long time to dry, then rain started and I rushed back, trying to shield the picture under its cardboard drawing board. I had more than one such sheet and they flapped like flags. Needless to say the highly pigmented ink got everywhere: on my raincoat, on my hat (how???).

Here’s the bamboo pen under calmer conditions. As you see I have now learned to wrap the bottle in a cloth to catch drips, and to label it clearly, so it doesn’t get confused with fountain pen ink which is in a similar bottle.

This was a warm day after a refreshing dip in the sea. I drew some pictures of the rocks. I used sea water to dilute the ink. This produced some interesting effects.

You see how the shellac-based ink interacted with the sea water to make little dots and swirls, a pleasing effect.

Here are some more pictures done in this ink, undiluted, and diluted with fresh water.

This ink is waterproof, but only *after* it has dried. This is sometimes a challenge in the Shetland climate. Here are some rock studies, with contributions from the rain falling on wet ink.

I tried to protect the drawings by turning the sketchbook into a sort of tent.

I enjoyed this new medium and the high-contrast effects I could obtain.

In the next post, I will show sketches of Burrastow House, on the West side, near Walls.