My sketching tools

I do a lot of travelling and take my sketching supplies with me all over the world. I've often been asked to do a blog about what I carry with me, so here it is. I'm packing it up to take to Cairns today!

It wouldn't be the same kit for everyone, but may give you some ideas. Feel free to add other suggestions in the comments section :-)

I try to keep my kit as compact as I can, while maintaining a good range of tools to work with. I've sketched each tool here using my new Daniel Smith Jane's Grey watercolour.

The sketchbook is The Perfect Sketchbook B5. It was a kickstarter project but apparently it will be available again through Etchrlab.com. It is made with Fabriano Artistico paper, 200gsm cold pressed. This is the 5th of these books that I've used so far and I really like them. The cover is recycled leather and the paper is a joy to use.

I love to begin each new book with swatches of one of my palettes. I'll talk about those below.

The tools are, from left, a 0.7 2B clutch/propelling pencil. I like the 0.7mm as it is not too fine for sketching but is also excellent for writing. I use either B or 2B leads - dark enough to do finished drawings or just light initial sketches, soft enough that it doesn't damage the paper.

Mottler - 1" size. I love this little brush. I use it for pre-wetting the background for sky washes or larger areas or for when I want more of a geometric shape.

Waterbrush. They are especially useful on planes or in galleries where it is difficult to manage a separate water container.

Uniball Broad white pen. For adding highlights or lost whites to a sketch or for writing on darker paper or darker washes.

Rosemary & Co Eradicator small sized. Great for lifting out fine details such as white window sills or for making minor corrections.

Post Office Nib in a cut down nib holder. I use this to draw or write with watercolour, loading the colour into the nib with a brush.

Small Scrubber brush - another correction tool. For cleaning up small splatters or softening parts of a wash.

Pilot custom Fountain pen (fine) with black De Atramantis Ink.

TWSBI 580 AL fountain pen (Extra Fine) with brown De Atramantis Ink

Pilot Custom Fountain pen (fine) with Urban Grey De Atramentis ink.

Porcupine Quill - for stirring paint in a palette or for scratching or denting the damp wash on a sketch to add fine details.

Da Vinci Maestro Travel Brush size 6

Faber Castell water-soluble graphite pencil 4B - I usually begin my sketches with this. If used lightly, the lines will wash into the watercolour and disappear. No need for erasing.

Da Vinci Maestro Travel Brush size 8.



The swatches on the page on the right is my usual sketching palette. This is a Herring Compact set up with 24 half pans. It includes my basic 15 Ultimate Mixing colours as well as some lovely convenience mixes and great granulating pigments. The full details are here. The Herring Compact palette is available in half pan or full pan models from Jackson's in the UK. I've adapted it slightly to hold the 24 colours and waterbrush.




























The swatches on the left page are of my Pocket Palette with my plein air extras - special pigments that I may not often use but are lovely at times. The details of those colours are also found here at the bottom of the page.















I use two plastic Nalgene bottles for my painting water. One clean, the other dirty.

I also carry a water bottle with drinking water. I love the A4 and A5 bottles as they fit into my Messenger Bag - a bike bag I bought in Canada.

I use a travel stool - the Helinox Chair One - as it is light (less than 1kg), compact and comfortable. The low height of this stool means I can have my water bottles on the ground next to me - one less item to have the juggle - and also that I can work with my sketchbook in my knee.

I have a few sheets of paper towel and a few very small Nalgene bottles to carry the inks I use - De Atramentis Document Inks. Black, Brown and my own mixed grey or Urban Grey.

I have a compact raincoat, a compact down jacket, fingerless gloves, sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, and umbrella and a very fine woollen scarf available, depending on the season, so I can be out in most weather. Rain and snow are of course rather too challenging!

As I mentioned, I'm off to Cairns today and will take all this with me. I'm teaching a 5-day 'sketching with watercolour' workshop in the botanic gardens. I'll be posting on Instagram - Janeblundellartist

Happy sketching!

The Portable Painter palette - up close and personal

I received a couple of Portable Painter palettes - an Indiegogo kickstarter project - and have set one up to play with it. It's an improvement on the W&N Cotman palette that many buy (and replace the paint with artist quality) as it has a larger brush space and more mixing areas. It also has the two water containers that act as a container or box when transporting, or as a stand so it can sit on your leg or another surface when sketching. It comes with 12 half pans - custom pans, though the universal ones will fit very tightly - but I set it up here with the paint directly in the wells. Only do that if you know you won't want to change the colours around!

The Portable Painter palette.

Here are the colours painted out, though in a different order from what you see above. This is one of my suggested urban sketching sets of 12. It contains a warm and a cool yellow, red and blue along with some very useful earth colours and a useful green. It also works very well for beginners in watercolour as there are no powerful and staining phthalo colours. More about this colour set here

A suggested urban sketching palette, set up with Daniel Smith watercolours. 

Here is one set up using the half pans that came with the palette. This time I have used my most used colours for urban sketching, rather than a more traditional recommended palette as shown above. It is set up as I usually do moving from lightest to darkest, through the rainbow going from left to right. There is only one bright red - quinacridone rose - as I don't use a lot of red when sketching buildings and can mix the other red hues I want with this very useful cool red. I have also included Indian red as it is so useful for brickwork. I love the earth colours and it makes a beautiful triad with cerulean chromium and goethite (with a touch of quinacridone gold for a little extra glow).

The Portable Painter palette set up with Daniel Smith watercolours

And here are the colours painted out. I really struggle to get down to just 12 colours. My Ultimate Mixing Set has 15. I normally work with 20 or 24. But this would work for me for urban sketching. I chose perylene green for this set rather than phthalo green as I don't have the crimson I'd normally have to mix this lovely shadow green. Perylene green also mixes great greens with the yellows in this palette, and of course there are many greens that can be mixed the the blues and yellows.

My 12-colour urban sketching palette - buff titanium, hansa yellow medium, quinacridone gold, quinacridone rose,
ultramarine, ceruelan chromium, perylene green, goethite, burnt sienna, indian red, raw umber, Jane's grey.
All Daniel Smith.

This set includes the earth triad mentioned above, a very useful almost primary triad of hansa yellow medium, quinacridone rose and ultramarine, and a cool triad of hansa yellow medium, cerulean and quinacridone rose. Goethite, burnt sienna and ultramarine also work beautifully for limited colour studies.

2107 update. The metal clip that holds the water containers together as a 'box' for this palette needed a place to stay while this palette is set up, and a branded elastic band has now been supplied. The plastic pans have also been stuck in as they tended to come out and rattle around. I've actually taken mine out and filled the palette directly with the colours above. You can see the clip held in place by the elastic on the right. This clip slides over the ridges to connect the set together.

You can get this palette from Jacksons in the UK - they ship world wide. Here is an affiliate link.

If you want to add up to six more colours, there is an expansion kit available, allowing 3, larger or up to 6 smaller pans of colour to be added into the brush space. You can see it clearly here.

There is also a Micro Palette, originally designed to hold up to 6 half pans, but with expansion kits allowing up to 16 colours. I've shown it on my website in the Palettes section but you can also see it in detail here. 

Happy sketching :-)

An amazing year with the Urban Sketchers - Part 1 - Hong Kong

I've had a fantastic year travelling to a number of places in the world and meeting up with many other Urban Sketchers. During March and April, I had the chance to spend four weeks travelling to Hong Kong, Paris, London, Sheffield, York and Cambridge. I attempted to sketch in each location, though sometimes it was too cold to complete the views I started.

I was lucky to arrive on the day of an Urban Sketching event for the Hong Kong Urban Sketchers so I met up with about 30 of them and we sketched the Maryknoll Convent School. It is 90 years old and has really interesting brickwork.

The Maryknoll Convent School, Hong Kong. A5 Moleskine sketchbook.

The paving through the old part of the school was created with locally mined granite. The bougainvilleas were out in full bloom and looked gorgeous.

Paving in the Maryknoll convent School. A5 Moleskine Sketchbook

We had a great lunch locally and a chance to chat before returning to the school for some more sketching. It is just wonderful to be able to meet up with fellow sketchers in almost any city in the world. USK is a fantastic organisation to be part of.

Amid lunch-time discussions, I heard that Graham Street, a famous wet-market, was to be 'renewed'. Many sketchers have been documenting this lively street for some time. I joined Alvin and Ben and sketched a stall in a couple of visits.

Graham Street stall, watercolour and pen in Moleskine A4 sketchbook.

We were joined by Tommy as he made his way down the street.

A corner building, Graham Street, watercolour in A5 Moleskine sketchbook.

It was quite disconcerting sketching the corner building as the sound of a regular, ground shaking banging was continuous - a reminder that this scene wasn't going to last.

I also explored the lovely Hong Kong park, found an amazing red flower, went to the aviary and saw some turtles.

On may way back through Hong Kong I sketched the education centre with Victor.

I also enjoyed spending some more time in the Asia Society building.

The Education Centre. Pen and watercolour.

A little turtle, watercolour in The Perfect Sketchbook.

Travelling light with colour

There are so many ways you can carry some colour with you when you are out and about. Some are so light and slim you can have them with you all the time. Others are more suitable for a planned painting kit. I have a set up for both - a portable kit I keep in my handbag and a more comprehensive kit that I take with my on planned sketching trips or travels. Here are a few ideas...

Coloured pencils - you can have a few coloured pencils with you in a small pencil case. Make them watercolour pencils and take a water-brush and you increase your options immediately.

Use water-colour pencils to make a tiny colour palette in the back of a sketch book on on a separate sheet of watercolour paper. Carry a travel brush or water-brush with you and you can wash in some colour with ease.

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  A water-soluable pencil palette

  

  Just a touch of a brush gives you a wash of colour.

  
  

You can buy paper impregnated with colour from Peerless, who have been making their transparent watercolours since 1885! The sheets were originally designed to tint black and white photographs. They can be cut up and stuck onto a paper palette, into a sketch book or a piece of plastic film.

Peerless transparent watercolours made into a palette. The colour has been washed in behind, then plastic contact applied, then the dark Peerless colours pasted on top.



Daniel Smith make 'try it dot' kits with many of their colours. You could make your own tiny palette with a drop or two of your favourite tube watercolours on a sheet of watercolour paper or plastic. Allow to dry and slip it into your sketch book.

Daniel Smith Try It Dots.

Or you can buy or make up small a travel palette with your favourite water-colour paints. Buy the half pans or buy empty pans and fill them from your own tubes.

Pocket palette made in Italy from Arters.com.sg This little cutie is painted black on the outside and has a thumb-ring. It is set up with 12 colours but 15 can be squeezed in with a bit of a fiddle :-)

Tiny hinged tin with 6 full pans.

An Art Basics 12 colour half pan palette with 14 colours and a Pocket Palette with 14 colours, all set up and ready to go.   The one on the left has a thumb-ring on the back. 

Update 21/6/2014: The colours in both of these are my suggested 'ultimate mixing colours' - Buff titanium (Daniel Smith), Hansa Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Gold PO49 (Daniel Smith), Pyrrol Scarlet, Pyrrol Crimson, Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine, Cerulean Chromium PB36, Phthalo Blue GS, Goethite (Daniel Smith), Burnt Sienna PBr7, Raw Umber PBr7 and Jane's Grey, which is a custom mix of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine. You can see this palette painted out on my website here. Available for AU$65 plus shipping if you want one from me filled with artist quality colours.

Small tin with 12 half pans.

There are a number of other small portable palettes for watercolour, or you could have one hand-made in brass like this one - my travel palette, which is lacquered brass and has a thumb-ring on the other side

 

There are so many ways to get some colour into your sketches and still travel light. 

Happy sketching!