A Clean Stroke

I braced an uncapped black fineliner against my shoulder, gripping the wide barrel to control its weight. Leaning forward on the textured paper of the open sketchbook, I pulled downward, letting the fine felt tip dig in. A sharp, curved line of dark ink laid out smoothly across the blank margin. I eased off, checked the stroke from a step back, and added a quick angular slash to balance the shape. Working with a tool twice my size takes some muscle, but the line held tight without bleeding.