WATERCOLOR TRAVEL KIT SET UP

Here are some photos of my drawing and painting kit that I take with me when I travel. One could have it with them at all times because of its' size but I save it for when I am on the road. Please note that my hand is not that fat!!! It is the camera angle. I wanted to show the size in relation to my hand. Hotels have miniature bottles of shampoo, mouthwash etc. for the guests. I use such a bottle cleaned out as a small water container. It fits in the kit nicely and doesn't leak. I have several Elegant Writer Pens in this kit, two regular travel brushes, one brush that holds water in the handle and a small mechanical pencil as well as a pen with permanent ink. A purse size packet of tissues complete the set.

MY TRAVEL SKETCHBOOK

Every time I go on a trip, I load my carryon tote with all this art material and then I use only a little of it. In the meantime, I am dragging around carry too much weight in my bag. I have finally found a nice system I like with a few supplies and I am much happier. I went to a smaller sketch book, one that I can get in my everyday bag as well. It is 5.5" x 8.5" and spiral bound so it stays flat when open. It is very inexpensive but I think I will upgrade to a better quality paper when I have filled this one up. I am enjoying working with the "Elegant Pen" and better paper will give a nicer result. I experimented this weekend with using two colors - brown and black. The brown is more sanguine so has a flesh tone quality. Very fun. Along with these pens, I carry one of those Japanese brushes with the water in the handle. A packet of tissue and a watercolor set the size of a mint tin. It all fits into a plastic bag in case something leaks. I have been thinking how I can get the effect of the Elegant Writer on watercolor paper. I doubt that these pens are light fast. I am going to try liquid watercolor full strength on tygerag and see what happens. I will try that tomorrow.

Flew Southwest Airlines this weekend. Their inflight magazine had an article on the movie "Lonesome Dove" and some great photos which I played around with. These two images were from the magazine. I did some others which I will post another time.

I have made a slide show of my "people hanging out in the airport bored to death" sketches. Some are from this trip and some are from my 11 hour layover in the Toronto airport in September. In Toronto, I used a Copic wide pen with an extra broad nib (about 1 inch!) in a taupe color, to quickly block in the shape and then went back with a sanguine pen to put the detail in. I used a mechanical pencil for the ones I did this weekend. Never have to sharpen them. I found I could very quickly scribble in the shape, then if they hadn't moved significantly, I could go back and do a fast contour drawing. If I still had time, I could go back again and focus on some details - features, hands, feet, etc.

I have been receiving some very nice e-mails from some of you who I have never met. I almost deleted a few thinking they were spam. Be sure and put something in the subject line so I know what it is about.

HOW DID SHE DO THAT?

Finally, a painting!!! I coated this paper with diluted acrylic matt medium. It is a very liftable surface and I think I like it better for regular watercolors than the clear gesso. The clear gesso only seems to give me good results with liquid watercolors by Dr. Ph Martin. I used a dip pen with the red ink. It dissolved in a funny way. I'm sure the coating on the paper affects this. I was expecting more like the Elegant Writer ink dissolve, but that didn't happen. Next time I will try untreated watercolor paper and see what happens. I decided to use this little travel watercolor set I put together using 6 waterbottle caps glued into an empty breathmint tin. A clever idea I read in an art magazine. I used a warm and cool of red yellow and blue. Don't like the cool yellow I put in there. I will use it up and then switch to Hansa. The yellow I used is Cad yellow light. The metal lid worked very well for mixing. I overworked part of the painting but over all it is the best effort I have done lately. I decided to do the ink drawing and then just paint and not think about how anyone else paints and just enjoy myself. It gets stressful trying to be someone else! I do want to explore the idea of ink lines incorporated into the image a little more. This is from one of the self portrait photos I took described below.



I had an inquiry from Nancy Standlee regarding my self portraits - was I looking in a mirror or using a photograph? I thought I would share my methodology with everyone. I do use a mirror sometimes, but I have been working from some photographs I took myself. Most cameras have a self timer setting which allows you to set up the camera and then get in position before the shutter releases. I found this fabulous tri-pod called a "Gorilla Pod". I have posted pictures of it taken from their website. As you can see, it is flexible, bendable, amazingly stable and sooooooo much fun. It weighs almost nothing so easy to carry around. Comes in 3 sizes depending on the size and weight of your camera for support. Using this tripod allowed me to get some more unusual angles. I just set it on the table and kept taking pictures until I had it angled the way I wanted. I bought this item in a camera store. I practically bought the store out as I gave one to all my children and my husband last December.