Fantasy with Stillman & Birn Sketchbooks

[RainySea]

Hi Sandra,

Love the horse. . . wow, using wine for a medium is an interesting idea.

The lake scene watercolor with the city in back is beautiful.

The abstract one with the gold gouache is very appealing and interesting visually. Nice work on all these.

[gakinme]

Thank you, Debby, Joan, Dragoon, Rainy.

Today I went to the painting retreat. It was a solid 8 hours and I'm exhausted. I don't think I have the energy to go tomorrow. I'm not like I used to be anymore.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time trying to decide what I should bring and in the end brought the following:

Arches block 9x12 inch new pack - used one sheet
Stillman & Birn Alpha spiral 9x12 inch - used 4 pages
Stillman & Birn Delta hardbound 5.5 x 8.5 inch - used 3 pages
Handbook Watercolor Journal landscape format 5x8 inch - used 4 pages
A few sheets of Fabriano gray paper 9x13 inch - never used any
A few sheets of cardstock 8.5 x 11 inch - used two sheets

Caran D'Ache Neocolor II - set of 12 pcs - never used it
Higgins black india ink - bottle leaked in zipbloc bag - never used
waterbrush filled with rubbing alcohol - never used
small water spray bottle - never used
Kimberly watercolor pencil - used once
Lyra Watercolor Soluable Graphite Crayon 6B - used a few times
Platinum Carbon fountain pen - used for all pen work
Pentel Pocket Calligraphy Brush Pen - used often
Caran D'Ache Neopastel set of 48 - used only a few colors
Daniel Smith watercolor 2 palettes with around 60 colors - used a few greens and blues mostly around 6 colors
a folding chair - totally necessary
2 empty water cup - used one only

You could see the 12 sketches I did.

I really am not landscape material. The floating trees in the lake are really amazing but I just couldn't flesh them out. And I kept putting make believe stuff in the lake.

I abstained from carrying the bag around the trails because it's too heavy for me. Stillman sketchbooks are way too heavy if you carry more than one. Luckily, I just vegged out on the deck.

I really wanted to bring the Zeta because I could do penwork and watercolor but I only had a hardbound small one and I thought about possibility of doing one good piece and taking it out of a spiral bound if I had one. So I had to take the large spiral Alpha and a small Delta since the small Delta has my travels started in it.

In the end, it worked out.

The Handbook Journal is really fun when it has the landscape format. Stillman hasn't got the landscape format yet.

I think in the future, I would just bring Arches and spiral Zeta but then, I think I'm going to focus on people and animals from now onwards. It's depressing not to be able to draw landscape.

Make believe bird
Pentel Pocket calligraphy brush pen
Stillman & Birn Delta 5.5x8.5 inch


watercolor
Stillman & Birn Delta 5.5x8.5 inch


watercolor and Pentel Pocket calligraphy brush pen
Stillman & Birn Delta 5.5x8.5 inch


Make believe bird

watercolor and Caran D'Ache Neopastel on Stillman & Birn Alpha 9x12 inch spiral



Lyra watersoluble graphite crayon 6B
Platinum carbon fountain pen
Stillman & Birn Alpha 9x12 inch spiral




Platinum carbon fountain pen
Stillman & Birn Alpha 9x12 inch spiral


Caran D'Ache Neopastel and watercolor
Stillman & Birn Alpha 9x12 inch spiral



Platinum carbon fountain pen
Stillman & Birn Alpha 9x12 inch spiral

[DrDebby]

Wonderful sketches. That's why some artists choose a particular venue for their art, some draw people, some animals, some do plants, others do still life and some do landscape. It's just what you are drawn to (pun intended ) So go with what you like and leave the rest for someone else to draw and paint.

[Joan T]

Great sketches from your retreat. You did a bit of everything. The S&B journals are great but I also find they are too heavy to carry around to do plein air sketching if you plan on walking any distance. A lot of the time I want something that is lighter so I go for my old standby Canson/Montvale journals. The small one even fits into my purse in case I'm not taking my backpack.

[gakinme]

Thank you, Debby, Joan, for dropping by.

Exactly, Joan. The 9x12 inch books are really very heavy. And for smaller size, I am almost drawn to using the small Montval watercolor blocks of 5x7 inch because they are buckled down and there's no likelihood of staining other pages before and after in my sloppiness. Had to bring 2 anyway for watercolor.

Nevertheless, today, I gave Stillman another chance. This time just the Delta and the Alpha 5.5x8.5 inch so I could alternate the two.

I brought a 36 well ultra thin plastic palette that I got from Artist Loft from Michael's, took all the student paint out and put in Daniel Smith watercolor all the way. While it is bulkier than a Sakura Koi 18 pan pocket watercolor set, I have more confidence in Daniel Smith colors. If I am walking and standing while painting, I use only the 5 Daniel Smith watercolor stick plastic case. If I bring a chair along, I am now happier using 36 color choice.

These didn't turn out too badly. The first one has Kimberly watercolor pencils as starters.

Creatures from rock formations



These have a lot of the Primatek colors and the light drizzle this morning accentuated the granulation of these watercolors.





a creature from a rock formation

[vhere]

I like a larger book and quality paper . I just hate working on thin paper, so again it's what we are drawn to

So I put up with the weight. I do take a postcard book occasionally if its a family outing or something but find it cramping to work small, not much room for gestural marks


Nice sketching.

[DrDebby]

Super sketches.