interesting that Strathmore are doing a heavier weight paper – it should be better but the sizing in S&B is so much better so they would need to improve that as well

and thank you

This is my sketching out kit for the inks – thanks to KK[/URL] for the tip on putting gauze in the jar – it means the ink doesn’t spill when taken out. You can even turn it upside down but the twigs or brush still pick up enough ink to draw with

plus either a waterbrush or jar of water for washes

MY WEBSITE:http://vivienblackburn.com MY BLOG:http://vivienb.blogspot.com/ ETSY for original paintings http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6150568

As ever I love your sketches. They are expressive in a way I never seem to capture in my own sketches.

I bought a Nova for a holiday sketchbook and loved it. Came home and ordered more.

practice practice practice! my first plein air pieces were terrible at a point when my studio work was much better. I have to be interested in whatever I sketch for some reason – light, pattern, texture, mood, sense of place, whatever.

I also like to work from life or sketches that were done from life as I see things differently from the limited colours and light of a camera (and the spatial distortions that come from zoom/wide angle lenses).

Your own innate distortion or emphasis comes through as well when working from life – one of my tutors at uni said that I have this habit of taking your eye zooming over the foreground and into the picture. I wasn’t doing it consciously but I do want you to be ‘in’ the place/still life/whatever so was obviously doing it unconsciously to achieve that.

MY WEBSITE:http://vivienblackburn.com MY BLOG:http://vivienb.blogspot.com/ ETSY for original paintings http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6150568