Tools: 05 Micron fiber pen

We spent the weekend away from the city—olive trees, sun, blue sky, family, a fireplace—and I brought my sketching tools.

Pigma Micron fiber pens have been my go-to for quite a long time, together with the hardbound, 150–gram, white-paper Alpha Series (22.9 x 15.2 cm, 9 x 6 in) sketchbook from Stillman & Birn, slightly bigger than A5 sheets, and the White Nights watercolors.

The thin tip of 005 Microns provides a 0.20 mm line thickness that allows for careful detail and line work, and thicker 03 Microns (0.35 mm) work great for infills and outlines.

This weekend I used 05 pens with an even thicker 0.45-mm line to portray faces, which resulted in faster sketches with fewer strokes that felt more expressive. Plus they run better on coarse paper.

It pays off to gain control of your creative medium, settle on a fixed set of tools, and focus on the act of doing.

It's only then that slight tool changes like this one can lead to significantly different results.