Drooling Over Art Supplies and Chinese Food

Monday, 4 May 1998

I finally started doing those pen-and-ink drawing excercises from Rendering in Pen and Ink last night. I started out with a Hunt's Crow Quill (#102) nib, but found it too scratchy and thin, so I switched to one of the other Hunt's nibs (#107) I'd picked up on my last trip to Pearl Paint, and found it to give a good, smooth line. I filled most of a 9" x 12" sheet of smooth finish bristol with line control excercises (nothing exciting, just parallel lines at various angles), and then found myself doodling around the edges of the page like I used to. I think it was just the pleasure of making marks on paper with a pen that did it.

Today I went back to Pearl to pick up more pen nibs. The book recommends various nibs from Gillott, but Pearl doesn't carry those. The clerk recommended I try a calligraphy supplier. So I picked up more Hunt nibs -- two each of #22, 56, 99, and 108 -- and a couple of the larger holders. I'm looking for something that makes a wider line than the #107, and I think the #56 and 99 look promising.

I also spent far too much time just wandering about the store drooling over things I want to buy even though I have no immediate use for them. There was a book on sumi painting that looked pretty good; I may try working on that after I've built up my pen-and-ink skills. And I was pleased to see that the manufacturer of Claybord has a line of inexpensive masonite-like supports, both plain and pre-gessoed. That'll come in handy when I start working with paint again.

While I was in Chinatown₁, I wandered past the Excellent Dumpling Shop, or Noddle Bowl, or whatever it's called, on Lafayette just south of Canal. I was really tempted to stop in for some scallion pancake and a bowl of corn with egg drop soup, but I just couldn't convince myself that I was hungry, and I'm trying to break myself of the habit of eating when I'm not hungry. I did pick up a bottle of green bean iced tea at a corner store, which I didn't like as much as I'd hoped I would, but was worth spending 75¢ on as an experiment. A couple of blocks later, I followed a wonderful scent to a street vendor cooking Chinese food on the spot, and I knuckled under and had a fresh-cooked scallion pancake the size of my hand.

I can't help but wonder what causes similar stores to cluster together into districts. I don't mean things like the Chinatowns, those are ethnic neighborhoods. On my way back to the Grand Street subway station, I passed three adjacent stores all selling dishes, glassware, and kitchen equipment for restaurants and bars. I guess Chiatown₁ is a good market for kitchenware, but it's a pretty large area. Why did two stores set up right next to an established competitor instead of a few blocks away where they might compete a little less directly?