We met at Seattle Center for our first day of instruction in the Dancing Lines workshop. My subset spent the morning with Melanie Reim. I learned how better to use my brush pen! She emphasized making a plan with a thumbnail. She also taught about drawing the figure on location… seeing the body as a group of shapes. She is an excellent teacher.
I used both the brush pen and a thick sign pen to do the drawings.
Our afternoon was spent with Kiah Kiean Ch’ng (KK). He started with distributing the drawing sticks his father prepped for us! Then he showed us how to carve the point of our own sticks. After that he provided us with some of his ink to try in our drawings. I didn’t get any though as I gave my container to another sketcher who didn’t get one last night. So I drew with the India ink I’d brought.
I really struggled with these tools. I got the hang of drawing with the stick though it required constant dipping. The tone made by dry brush from the ink on the sponge was a real hassle. The sponge dried out too much (it’s supposed to be a little dry0 and I could hardly get the kind of tone I wanted. He’d said to buy cheap oil painting brushes but maybe the ones I got were too cheap.

In case you can’t tell, it’s a section of MoPoP (formerly, EMP).
Our subsection, Group A, took a group photo.
More photos: https://redharp.smugmug.com/SketchOutings/2017-0715-Dancing-Lines-workshop/