Some drawing gear

Watercolor and Noodler´s Lexington Grey ink on Saunders Waterford paper in sketchbook

I just drew the stuff I carry around for drawing and painting the other day. I have a "large set" of portable  equipment consisting more or less of the above. A couple of extra pens and pencils and an eraser didn´t fit in to the drawing, and a small bottle of water and a flat brush as well. The colors are W&N artist colors from tubes, which I use to refill the half pans in the little plastic box. It is Winsor yellow, New Gamboge, Indigo, French Ultramarine, Phtalo Turquise, Winsor purple, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, Ivory black Scarlet Lake and Permanent Rose. I am thinking of exchanging Burnt Umber for Vandyke Brown though. It is a color I just recently started to use and I like it so far. You might notice that I don´t use any green color - I haven´t been able to find one that I like so in the middle mixing compartment I always have an ongoing green mixture, usually New Gamboge and Indigo, but with other colors too depending on what color green I want. I sometimes squeeze a bit of New Gamboge tube color directly into the compartment which makes it easier.

Almost at the same time as I did my drawing, I got my hands on a couple of flex nib pens from Noodlers and started to think about a real mini-kit with drawing stuff that would fit into my regular small handbag. Now, I sometimes leave my drawing stuff behind if I don´t think I will get the time to do something, and then the opportunities always seem to show up some how. So I made a mini-kit with one (Flex) pen, one pencil, a portable brush, a waterbrush and a little plastic box where I glued 9 half pans. That equipment I could always bring with me along with a small sketchbook - I´ll report back if it works for me.

February coffebreak

Last week, I had coffe at a really nice little Café in Nyköping, where my mother lives, sitting out in their backyard in the middle of the winter.... They have a kind of a green-house, heated and with tables for guests, where you can sit all year around. Nice! I enjoyed a "Semla" a Swedish traditional bakery that we eat in February, actually, it is not supposed to be consumed before the official day of the "semla", which is the day before Lent, so I cheated a bit... I somehow seem to do that every year!? 

My pictures get horrible, by the way. I really need to get a scanner, but I don´t know which one or how to use it. Ideas, anyone?

New sketchbook

Since I think the Moleskin I have been using is quite hard to draw in, and also does not hold enough water for a watercolor notebook I bound a sketchbook of my own, with different paper in it, to try out some options.

The above is made on Saunders Waterford Satin, which I quite like. The color is added wet on wet and spreads nicely, I think. It dries a little uneven though, so even washes are a bit hard to make.

The second orchid is done with the same technique on Arches Satinée. It is similar to Saunders, but the paper dries even more unevenly, which has a tendency to create backruns and "cauliflowers" when it dries. Also, for some reason, the ink smeared more on this paper! I used Noodler´s black, which is designed to dry waterproof in contact with the cellulose in the paper. I don´t know if this paper contains less cellulose than Saunders since the ink didn´t get waterproof as it should?

The above drawing is made on Saunders again. This time, I wetted the paper completely (and added the green color in the middle of the flower wet-on-wet) before I let it dry and then did the background. This is the way you normally work with watercolor paper since it is wetted when stretched for a painting, and this sure did the trick. It was much easier to create an even wash this way.

International sketchcrawl #34

New year, new sketchbook, new mission.... There has been limited time for sketching lately and thus the blog has been rater inactive. I decided to take it up again, and a friend and I challenged each other to do some kind of artistic activity every day - even if it is only a five minute pencil drawing. Just to get into the flow again... This weekend we went to meet with other sketchers at the 34th international sketchcrawl gathering in Stockholm. We were six people meeting at Citykonditoriet, which is an old café in the center of Stockolm, with a lot of interesting interiors and details. We had planned to move on to some museum, but we had such a nice, relaxed time that we just kind of got stuck there!

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I also did an after-sketchcrawl drawing of my husband reading later that afternoon. It doesn´t really look like him though. I would have needed a pen with an extra-fine nib for the details in the face - now they just look a bit messy. He thinks I was generous with the hair though - maybe wishful thinking? 

EDM #324 - Draw a garden tool

I have been terrible at keeping up with the EDM challenges lately. I wish I could say that this is due to other art projects, but in fact my sketchbook has been hibernating for a while. I will try to shape up... This is a rather depressing reminder of that summer is gone now for real. There was frost in the garden this morning and there will be no more strawberries growing there until next summer... One little tool remained in the garden from replanting some plants in the hope of them surviving winter. Watercolour and ink in Moleskin watercolour sketchbook.

Portrait of my daughter

This portrait I drew for my mother´s birthday, it is of my eldest daughter Ebba. She also got the  portrait of Hilda that I drew last year as an EDM-challenge but never got around framing... I made a quick sketch live, but she has little patience sitting still, so I took a reference photo as well as help when finishing it. It was fun doing, actually! I never considered myself much of a portrait painter, but I might become one one day....?

"Draw my violin..."

...etc. Painting with kids can be really fun, but you seldom get to do what you want! I let all the kids use my paints and paper when were at some friends' summerhouse with the hope of getting to draw the lovely view meanwhile. But the kids just wanted me to draw their toys and stuff. And when the eldest girl, Signe, wanted a drawing of her violin, I actually found it quite fun to do so I did a little painting for her even. She was very happy for it, so it was definitely worth the lack of scenery painting...