My Compact Sketch Kit

I thought I'd share with you a compact kit I took with me on a recent 3-week trip that served me well, and I will take the same kit on our upcoming 16-day Grand Canyon river trip!

The bag is an Eagle Creek Pack-It Quarter Cube, and has a nice little carrying handle and a mesh cover. In the bottom I fit pens (Platinum Carbon Desk Pen and a Uniball Vision Micro), a mechanical pencil, 2 water brushes (fine and large), travel brushes (daVinci 1573 10 and 5), mini mister, pocket knife, reading glasses, stencil (bristle) brush for spatter, small piece of straw, 1/2 contact lens case holding a piece of kneaded erasure, and two small clips. I have a homemade palette from a Fisherman's Friend cough drop tin. Paper is a few sheets of 4x6" watercolor paper (in this case, Fabriano SP). I keep several more sheets of paper in a separate bag to refill this kit as needed. I have a piece of non-corrugated cardboard as a paper support, lined with contact paper and edged with artist tape. I clip a sheet of paper to the support when I sketch. I made a viewfinder from a piece of 4x6" watercolor paper to help me frame my compositions (I taped embroidery floss for the cross-hairs). The paper, support, and viewfinder are stuffed into an empty Canson watercolor 4x6" block. A Sea-to-Summit X-shot is used as a tiny collapsible water container. I usually I have a water bottle with me. Oh, and let's not forget a piece of Viva paper towel!

For those who are interested in knowing the paints in my palette, they are (starting at upper left): DS Hansa Yellow Medium, DS New Gamboge, DS Organic Vermillion, DS Q. Rose, DS Q. Violet, HB Manganese Blue Nova, DS Cobalt, DS French Ultramarine, DS Phthalo Blue GS, DS Phthalo Green BS, DS Yellow Ochre, DS Q. Burnt Orange, DS Burnt Sienna, WN Winsor Violet.

Here are some sketches I made during that 3-week road and river trip this May through California and Oregon:  

Agate Beach just south of Crescent City, CA

Rafts awaiting rigging along the Rogue River, Oregon

Along the Rogue River, Oregon

Sprekles Temple of Music, San Francisco, CA

Pacific Grove, CA

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

Keeping Motivated for a Daily Art Practice

What keeps you motivated for a daily art practice?  Do you keep a daily Artist's Journal?  I love to keep one where I sketch in pen and watercolor, and it's a great place to paint what inspires you for that day, try out new subjects or techniques, record what you see during an outing...the possibilities are endless!  It's your journal!

For instance, on the day I sketched this dragonfly, I had revisited the old deck of Medicine Cards I hadn't seen in years and blindly selected the Dragonfly card.  Oh, I've always been intending on drawing a dragonfly and that day was as good a day as any!

Many times I am inspired because I have seen a particular subject or technique from an artist online that I want to try.  On my favorite Facebook artist groups I saw a couple folks posting a technique of painting a watercolor wash first, then drawing over the wash in pen.  How fun!  I thought I'd give it a try.  It's a very nice technique for when the subject is rather colorless.  Even ordinary household items suddenly look artistic!

One recent morning I noticed beautiful morning light streaming into the kitchen counter so I grabbed some berries from the refrigerator and took some photos of them in that light (because I knew the light would be gone before I could paint it).  The berries cast wonderfully long shadows.  I wanted to play with painting shadows in watercolor, and this gave me the opportunity.

If it's lovely outside I will step out with my sketch kit and find something that draws my eye to sketch, whether it be a grand landscape or urban scene or the detail of a plant. Of course, if the day involves any kind of errand or outing, it's a prime opportunity to sketch something!  A recent meeting of the Southern Arizona Climber's Coalition at our local Barrio Brewery provided one such opportunity to capture the lovely stained glass faux balcony doors in the room, and get some practice quick-sketching people too!

And if I'm at a loss, I search out my own collection of photos, or I look online at places like morgueFile,  Paint My Photo, or Wikimedia Commons (to avoid copyright infringement) for photos that tweak my interest and sketch those.

It helps to have on-going projects. I am working on some "retrospective" trip journals, sketching photos from past trips I did before I got into sketching. It's a great way to reminisce about wonderful trips you've taken.

I also am in an Artist Trading Card exchange project with fellow artists, and I use my Artist's Journal to explore certain ideas first.


There are so many ways you can keep motivated for a daily art practice, whether in you Artist's Journal or in other journals and art projects too!  I hope you have some ideas and inspiration for your own daily art practice!

A break from EDiM...off into the neighborhood to sketch!

I was "free" from Every Day in May today because I did a "two-fer" yesterday, so I used my time to stroll to the entrance of our neighborhood and finally sketch one of the cute little decorative kiosks there.  I found a shady spot under the shade of a palo verde tree, set up my sketch stool, and enjoyed a nice hour of sketching.

While there, I witnessed a motorcycle officer from Pima County Sheriff pull over a speeder.  Too many cars do indeed go too fast on 35 mph Wade Road.

EDiM #9: Draw a lock

I was considering a couple options for "draw a lock", among them the clusters of locks on fences that we saw while visiting Paris (why do people do that?), or the lock-bar we use on our car's steering wheel.

But I ran across this photo in MorgueFile from krosseel, and I really like the "story" this image shows.  Sometimes one lock is not enough.

I had a busy art day.  In addition to keeping up with my EDiM assignment, I also met with my fellow Tucson Sketchbook Brigade ladies, and we spent a couple hours sketching the Manning House in downtown Tucson.  I guess it's like 106 years old.  I was surprised to see a "For Sale" sign on it, I remember having Christmas lunch there for work.

Aside from the gardener nearby with his leaf-blower running, it was such a pleasant morning, with a great group of ladies to sketch with.

The Sketchbook Brigade - Urban Sketchers Tucson

Agua Caliente Park sketch-out

At our latest meeting of the Sketchbook Brigade (a sketcher's Meetup.com group here in Tucson) I suggested to our leader Robin that we add on to our group name Urban Sketchers Tucson, and she agreed!  There is a global organization called Urban Sketchers, and numerous satellite organizations for local groups of urban sketchers.  The global Urban Sketchers is pretty cool, with their motto, "See the world drawing at a time", and they even have a manifesto which outlines their definition of "urban sketching" (which is basically a sketch of a location--it doesn't have to be in a city--done on location).  This falls right into a major component of Sketchbook Brigade activities!

Our most recent sketch-out was last Sunday at Agua Caliente Park on the far north-east side of Tucson.  It was my first time there and I was amazed at what must be hundreds of mature palm trees.

Another recent sketch-out was at the Sweetwater Wetlands where we tagged-along on a meeting of the Tucson Plein Air Painters Society.  As you can imagine, living in the desert tends to draw us to the few wetland areas in Tucson to sketch the novelty of it.

Sweetwater Wetlands sketch-out

Sketching Australia

I'm back from 3 months in Australia!  Since I am very much into sketching these days, I made sketching what I saw in Australia a high priority for my time there.  Before I went, I carefully decided what sketchbook, pen, and watercolor pigments to bring.  I decided to try the Stillman & Birn Alpha because it looked like the paper was thick enough to handle watercolor paint yet thin enough to provide an ample number of pages in the book, and allow me to feel freer to write in it too.  It worked out great!  I brought my favorite pen, the Platinum Carbon Desk Pen, and spare Platinum Carbon ink cartridges.  I originally thought I'd bring ink in a little nalgene bottle with a syringe, but didn't want to bother with that.  As it was, I only used 2 ink cartridges for the entire 3 months.

It was of course a wonderful experience to do so much sketching, and I really feel that my skills improved with the almost daily practice.  It wasn't too difficult to find the time to sketch while travelling with a non-sketcher (my husband), as I was able to sketch while he was doing other things.  But still, oh what fun it must be to feel free to sketch where ever, whenever, and for as long as you want when travelling solo or with another sketcher!  Someday I shall have to experience that.

If you care to see more pages from this sketchbook, I created a Facebook album.

Find the beauty in the mundane

Inspired by Pete Scully and Larry Marshall, who turn ordinary fire hydrants into amazing works of art, I walked myself kitty-corner across the street to our nearest fire hydrant and sketched it!  It was great fun, so simple yet complex enough to be interesting.  Try it!

Another outing with my sketch-mobile...

Cortaro Bridge over the Santa Cruz river

Tucson and neighboring Marana are doing really great for developing urban bike paths throughout the city, particularly along the major washes and rivers.  Within an easy bike ride from my home is a wonderful bike path along the Santa Cruz river, which actually has water running through it most times of the year!  This morning I hopped on my bike with my sketch kit and sketch stool in a day-pack and rode to a location I had noticed on a previous outing, offering a great view of the Santa Cruz flowing under the bridge at Cortaro Road.  And this is my sketch!

As I was putting the finishing touches on my sketch a man who had been jogging along the path informed me that he spotted a 5-foot rattlesnake a little ways up the path, if I cared to go check it out.  So after I packed up my stuff and I rode to the area he indicated, but the snake apparently had left.  Oh well.

Maiden voyage on my sketch-mobile!

Inspired by the Danny Gregory film "Red Hook" featuring Tommy Kane where he rides his bicycle to sketch the Red Hook bar, I've been recently getting my bicycle in working order (fixing both flat tires, fixing the shifter, tuning the gears, lubing the chain) so I too can have a "sketch-mobile". This morning was my maiden voyage to our local library. It was fun, and I want to do more of it!

Sketching in the High Sierras

I recently spent a week in the Eastern Sierras of California hiking, camping, backpacking, and rock climbing.  Of course, I took what opportunities I could for sketching too!  For the hiking/car-camping portion of the trip I brought my regular sketch kit in my Eagle Creek Pack-it Sac, and got a few sketches in:

Many were done while the men (my husband and a friend) were otherwise occupied (hiking to the summit of Mt Starr while I lingered at Summit Lake and Mono Pass, in one case; I sketched a boulder while they were bouldering in another case).  In a quiet moment at Whitney Portals I also was able to sit by the lake and sketch the store.

From Whitney Portals we backpacked up to Iceberg Lake (12,600 ft) at the base of Mt. Whitney, the highest summit in the contiguous United States (at 14,505 ft).  From there we rock climbed one day up to the top of Mt. Whitney, and on another day up a neighboring peak, Mt. Russell (14,094 ft).  On those climbing days, there wasn't much time to sketch, but on the day we arrived, I did manage to sketch our tent amongst the granite buttresses adjoining Mt. Whitney with my ultra-minimalist sketch kit:

Because I would be camping at 12,600 ft I decided not to bring any of my fountain pens (I thought they might be a bit leaky at high altitude), buy instead brought my Pigma Micron pen.  The sketchbook is one of the single-signature booklets I recently made, containing Aquarius II watercolor paper.  And my watercolor kit is a set of 5 half-pans in a mini-altoids tin containing New Gamboge, DV Red Rose Deep, DV French Ultramarine, Phthalo Green, and Burnt Sienna.  Oh, and to round out the kit is a Pentel Aquash fine-tipped waterbrush.  All contained in a quart-sized zip-lock bag!

So much inspiration in the High Sierras for sketching...now that I am home I'm enjoying sketching from my photos of the trip.

Back from a month-long road trip (and blog catch-up)!

I knew I've neglected this blog but I didn't realize how badly!  I apologize to myself and my followers.  Since I last posted, I did indeed complete Brenda Swenson's 75-Day Sketch Challenge (yay!) and she kindly sent me my Artistic License.  It was such a beneficial experience, I can't tell you how much more confident I feel about drawing now (and more forgiving of my results than before!).

Though I still continued to draw and sketch after the Challenge, I didn't do it quite as much.  My focus shifted a bit again towards photography as I got a new compact camera to replace my damaged one, and I created a new photography blog to talk about my photography doings.  I also went on a fun backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon (where I did indeed do some sketching) and decided to write a trip report about it on another new blog I created.

I recently got back from a great month-long road trip through Utah and Wyoming where we camped every night (in various campgrounds or BLM land), did lots of rock climbing, and also took in the sights.  I fortunately had lots of spare time to photograph and sketch!  I took my compact watercolor sketch kit and made it a point to do at least one sketch from each camp sight.

The first page was while at my mother-in-law's home in Flagstaff, drawing from images from a nature calendar she had.  After visiting with her awhile, we commenced our road trip and our first stop was in Zion NP, where I did this sketch from our camp site.

We moved on towards Maple Canyon in Utah (southeast of Provo) via Yuba Lake SP.  The water of this lake was so green in the bright sun!  Maple Canyon, where we spent 4 days rock climbing, has high cliffs made up of a conglomerate of rounded river stones, pretty bizarre to see and to climb.  From there we proceeded towards Ten Sleep, Wyoming via Scofield SP in Utah, where our campsite was bordered by lovely aspen trees, my favorite type of tree.

On our way to Ten Sleep we also camped at Dinosaur NM in the northeast corner of Utah, right by the Green River.  I had a chance to sketch the river the next morning.  Once in Ten Sleep we stayed 8 nights and that afforded me lots of free time to sketch.  Fortunately, it was around the peak time for wildflowers around our campsite and I enjoyed sketching and photographing them.  Our campsite was right along Ten Sleep Creek, and I took the opportunity to sketch my view of the creek from the picnic table.

After leaving Ten Sleep we went to Yellowstone NP, where surprisingly we were so busy touring the sites and trying to spot critters that I didn't have any time to sketch.  I did a lot of photography though!  After 3 days in Yellowstone we started heading back south to spend some time in one of our favorite places, Moab, Utah.  We did a little rock climbing there (not very much since it was so hot!) and enjoyed the sights in Canyonlands, Arches, and along the Colorado River.  I was able to get several sketches in during this portion of the trip.

I came home with a revitalized enthusiasm for sketching!

Sailing the Sea of Cortez

We recently returned from a 6-day trip sailing the Sea of Cortez!  Mark and I were invited by an old friend to come to his home in San Carlos, Mexico and take a cruise on his sailboat across the Sea of Cortez to the Baja side and explore the area.  Seas and winds were generally calm, but we finally did have enough wind to sail back to the Mexican mainland on our last day.

Of course I got some watercolor sketching in, but mostly this was a trip where I was able to take some very satisfying photos.  I have a gallery of my photos from this trip at http://www.pbase.com/segan/sancarlos.

It's wildflower season in Tucson!

The first flowers to bloom here in southern Arizona are the brittlebrush and the Mexican poppies.  I recently found a treasure trove of poppies and lupines on a recent hike in the Tucson Mountains.

Major Blog Catch-up

I've been keeping up with the 75-Day Sketch Challenge and on Day 46 now!  I try to sketch from life, like this barrel cactus trio in our backyard, but sometimes I find it handier (and warmer) to sketch from my large reserve of photos (since I spent many years intensely interested in nature photography!).

I'm not usually a fan of drawing buildings, but I did our newly-constructed LA Fitness gym as a handy subject while I waited for my husband to do an extended workout:

On weekends I often join my husband and his friend rock climbing, and that is a wonderful opportunity for some plein air sketching:

I've really been on a fountain pen kick lately (more on that later), and one thing I've been exploring is pen & wash techniques with water-soluble ink:

And finally, yesterday's sketch is one from a photo I took at the local Butterfly Magic exhibit in February 2006.  I really enjoyed painting this butterfly and will likely do more from the photos I took that day:

So as I've said, I've been on a fountain pen kick lately.  I really love the ink & watercolor style, and since I draw in ink before adding watercolor washes I need a waterproof ink.  I have typically used the Pigma Micron 01 pens, and the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens (S being my favorite), but I feel a desire to explore refillable fountain pens.  I am not completely new to the fountain pen realm, having bought a Sheaffer cartridge fountain pen and a Sheaffer No Nonsense pen (with 3 italic nibs) back in the 1980's.  I dug those old pens out, re-constituted the dried out ink in the cartridges, and played with those for a while.  I looked to see what other artists use, and I admit, I was primarily influenced by the wonderfully-talented Nina Johansson when I ordered a Lamy Safari EF from Goulet Pens and a big 4.5-oz bottle of Lexington Gray ink (that included a free Platinum Preppy eyedropper pen!).  But I have to admit, that pen did not work for me.  I first loaded the converter up with the Lexington Gray and I found the lines in both writing and drawing, on both regular and watercolor paper, to be too anemic and broken up.  The ink flow was just not there, and the gray went on too lightly for my taste.  So I flushed the Lexington Gray out of the Safari Converter and I refilled with some of the sample of Noodler's Bulletproof Black.  At first I thought this might be a happy match, because even though the pen was "dry", that seemed to be a good thing, because that ink may not bond to the paper (and thus be waterproof) if it's put on too thickly.  However, with further drawing experience with the Lamy Safari and the Noodler's Black ink, I found I was just fighting the pen too much.  I'd have to re-trace over lines I had just drawn because they were either too light or in most cases broken or with no ink flow at all.  It became frustrating--drawing is hard enough when you don't have to fight your tools!  I wanted to like this pen, but it's just not working for me and I'm sending it back to Goulet.

Edited on 1/30/12 to add that Goulet Pens received my return of the Lamy Safari EF pen wrote me an email to inform me that they have refunded me the full amount, and that actually the nib was defective, so it was no surprise that I did not like the pen.  This is good to know!  They did assure me that the Lamy Safari is a great pen and I ought to give it another try sometime.

It didn't help that I really liked how the free Platinum Preppy was working for me!  I filled that pen up with Lexington Gray ink and though a bit more scratchy than the Lamy, it writes a smooth line, never breaks up, so easily!  I don't have to fight this pen!  So it's hard to justify keeping the Lamy when the Preppy suits me just fine.

But I am not done...I recently made an order from JetPens for a Platinum Carbon Pen---Platinum Carbon ink is purported to be very black and very waterproof, and I want to give it a try.  Many caution that this ink can clog regular fountain pens if not maintained properly and used regularly, so I thought I'd try the pen that is designed to use this ink.  We'll see, the order is on it's way!  I also ordered two more Platinum Preppys and a Platinum converter because I want to be able to keep a Preppy in my purse (and not eyedropper'd -- too risky!).  

Well, gotta go play tennis, but I have more to catch-up on in a following post, including my experiences with Coptic Binding and further progress on my Retrospective Trip Journal...

Start of a 75 Day Sketch Challenge

I've recently discovered Brenda Swenson's blog and I really love the pen and watercolor style she uses in her sketchbooks. And the color! I am so inspired by her work (as well as other's such as Cathy Johnson, Leslie Fehling, Elizabeth Smith, and Susan Cornelis), I now realize that I want to channel much of my painting energy into sketchbooks more than stand-alone paintings. One of the issues I've had about painting is the growing stack of paintings on my closet shelf--somehow I'd much rather have a growing stack of completed sketchbooks, especially from my travels (but also from other elements of my life)! The idea of the sketchbook really attracts me now and gives me a better "place" to put my painting practice.

But I need to learn to draw better. I have a confession...I often work by tracing a print-to-size photograph onto my watercolor paper (using a lightbox) and painting from there. I'd usually rather paint than draw, mostly because I don't think I draw all that well. But can't I change that with practice, practice, practice? I believe so!

So when I read about Brenda Swenson's 75 Day Sketch Challenge, I figured, why not? I intended to practice painting in my sketchbooks anyway, why not rise to a more structured challenge? Well, it's not that structured. There are really only two rules: 1) Do a sketch every day for 75 consecutive days, and 2) Do these sketches in ink, not pencil. Brenda's experience doing this has shown her that such an endeavor has made a huge difference for her artwork. I believe I too can improve this way, and hopefully get more confident about my drawing!

So there is no better time than the present--here is a photo of my first sketch, of the back of my home, in my Pentalic Nature Sketch Journal, using a Pigma Micron pen, Niji waterbrush, and watercolor paints:

It's got issues, but not bad for my first! I plan to continue the practice (but I won't burden this blog with daily updates) and hope to get better!