Tours of Sketchbook No. 25

I just finished sketchbook no. 25! Here is a quick tour followed by a longer view.

A slower tour.

New Portable Watercolor Palette

Inspired by Stephanie Bower's brilliant homemade palette that she showcased in her Craftsy classes: Perspective for Sketchers & The Essentials for Sketching Architecture, I decided to make one of my own.

To make it, you need a piece of corrugated plastic (I got it from my art supply store, but Stephanie says you can get it from hardware stores as well); a prescription pill bottle, and a binder clip to hold your palette. Just cut two circles in a piece of corrugated plastic cut to size (mine is 8" x 7.75"). Add tape to protect your thumb against the cut edges of the plastic. Put down some scrap watercolor paper to test your colors, clip on your palette, add water to your pill bottle, and hold some paper towel or tissue in your hand underneath the palette and you're ready to go!

I can't wait to try this out in the field!

Do you have your own portable palette solution? I'd love to hear about it!

UPDATE: I added a couple of holes to the palette to hold some paint brushes.

Quick trip to the coast

We love staying at Steep Ravine - a coastal area near Stinson Beach that is part of California's Mount Tamalpais State Park. Steep Ravine is so wonderful that you need to book either the campsites or the cabins six months prior to your stay and at exactly 8am PT on the first of the month.

We were lucky enough to reserve a cabin for Monday to Wednesday this week and pulled the kids out of school for the trip. Even though we left Tuesday night so the girls could go to school all day on Wednesday, I still got a lot of sketching in. Here are my finished sketches from the trip.

Chloe and Todd built this wooden shelter on the beach

The beach with sun rays peaking out from the clouds

Our view of the cabins in front of cabin #5

Jade reading in her bed in the main cabin room

A hermit crab with a beautiful iridescent shell

An Illustrated Nature Journal

A few days ago, I signed up for ANOTHER Craftsy class, Illustrated Nature Journalng with Gay Kraeger. I LOVED it. Gay starts out by having us tear a full sheet of watercolor paper into 16 5.5" x 7.5" sheets that we can later arrange and make into a finished journal. I usually work in handmade bound sketchbooks, but I know Marc Taro Holmes prefers using single sheets so that he can work on more than one at a time (especially useful while one has watercolor that needs drying before continuing).

Gay also stressed striving for imperfection and also using simple "machines" to create landscape elements like clouds, waves, rocks, grasses, and dirt. These "tricks" such as using salt, a cut flat brush, rolled up papery towel, and wax resist we're all things I had at the ready and were surprisingly effective.

Gay also taught us a bit about designing a page using borders, lettering, and color unity. She really opened up my eyes for subjects and pleasing pages! I highly recommend this class!! Especially during one of Craftsy's many sales - like its Labor Day half off all classes sale.

Here are my pages from my illustrated nature journal from my 3 day camping trip to Steep Ravine, one of my favorite places in the world. I posted a quick video of the sketchbook that I bound with a stab stitch at the end.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the artwork, the sketchbook, or the Craftsy class. Thanks!!

Tour of our Sketchbook 18 - Steep Ravine Camping Trip

I loved my latest Craftsy class - Illustrated Nature Journalling with Gay Kraeger. She gave me some great ideas for using her "landscape machines" for making clouds, rocks, trees, etc. I used a lot of her techniques in this sketchbook and even for making this sketchbook out of a single sheet of Fabriano Artistico cold press 140 lb. watercolor paper torn into 5.5" x 7.5" sheets, which I later stab stitch bound.

Here is a leisurely tour of the sketchbook.

And a quick tour.

What do you think of this type of sketchbook/illustrated nature journal?

Seeing the Strandbeests in Person

Today, my husband and I celebrated our 19th anniversary by visiting the Exploratorium in San Francisco (with our 10 year old who still hasn't started school this year yet) to see Theo Jansen's Strandbeests ("beach machines" in Dutch). These amazing "living" machines are pieces of moving art that will be leaving San Francisco on September 5th!

Here is a sketch I did of one of the Strandbeests, Animaris Adulari (2012).

And another quick sketch I did in water soluble brush pen of during a walking demonstration of the Animaris Suspendisse.

Here is a short video of my daughter pushing a Strandbeest.

And finally, a quick sketch of our view at lunch outside of the Exploratorium.

If you can't come view these amazing creatures in person, check out this video:

If you've seen them, what were your thoughts?

Sketching on our Road Trip

Yesterday, we started our road trip to North Hollywood to go to Universal Studios for my youngest's birthday. We left at 8:30am and lucky for me, my husband drove the whole way while I got to sketch!

Before we left, I got my new Pocket Palette in the mail and prepared it with some hot glue to further divide some palettes and I also made a new small sketchbook.

I am a bit behind on my homework for Sketchbook Skool's Seeing klass with Koosje Koene. We were to draw a selfie a day for a week. I have done 5. Here is my 6th.

Here is a still life of a pear on my door arm rest. I was practicing my watercolor mixing from my Craftsy class on Luminous Watercolor Mixes and using my new Pocket Palette!

Next, I did a quick watercolor sketch while we drove over the Grapevine before descending into the Greater Los Angeles area.

We made it to our hotel, The Garland, after only 5 hours! We had brunch at The Front Yard. And I did a quick still life from our table before I dug into my eggs Benedict. I used what I learned in Brenda Swenson's Seeing klass - employing a soluble Tombow marker before adding watercolor and a format around my objects.

Finally, we ended the day at the pool and I got this urban sketch in using my soluble market again.

Tomorrow, we are spending the entire day at Universal Studios mostly in the Harry Potter Wizarding World. I will post my sketches from the day later.

Sketching while camping near Stinson Beach

We were lucky enough to get a prime camping spot at Steep Ravine near Stinson Beach. This place is amazing. We've been many times before, but we have to book 6 months prior on the 1st of each month at 8am on the dot. And even then, weekends are almost impossible to get.

So, we were camping mid-week at this beautiful location with hardly any other people around. We saw dolphins, pelicans, brush rabbits, a seal, star fish, anemones, hermit crabs, and so much more!

Best of all, I got to sketch a lot! Here are my sketches and some photos of my new portable easel in use.

The fog created some interesting textures in the sky and ocean!

Sketching at the beach by the cabins.

Sketching at the tide pools at low tide this morning.

Sketching in the City

My daughter, Chloe, and I had a day to kill while our car was being worked on in Berkeley the other day, so we took BART to San Francisco and spent the day sightseeing, doing a little homework, and sketching.

We first stopped for a coffee and hot chocolate at the Ferry Building. Here is my sketch looking out at the ferry that came in from Marin.

Then, we walked towards Chinatown and stopped at this little playground in Sue Bierman Park.

Looking towards Pier 1 at Sue Bierman Park

We picked up some Pusheen items in Chinatown for my daughter - then went to Caffe Trieste in North Beach to do some math homework for her. She was not too happy doing her homework, but got to do a little more shopping afterwards!

Sketching using Grisaille

In Steven Reddy's excellent Sketching Interiors class, he instructs us to use a series of India ink washes after our contour ink drawing (among other things). He makes drawing details easier by instructing us to draw foregrounds, middle ground, and then backgroun elements in that order with the freedom to edit out items as we choose.

I took a photo from our recent trip to Paris and tried out his techniques. Here is the phase before adding color.

Using this method really helps me to see values (lights and darks). But, I can't help but add watercolor.

Grisaille refers to a painting done entirely in gray tones and was popular during the Renaissance. Have you tried it?

My Redbubble Contrast Tank Arrived

I am so excited that my Redbubble contrast tank arrived today with on of my urban sketches from Paris on it!

Redbubble says that it is printed and constructed by hand in America. It is very lightweight and has a chiffon front with a black cotton contrast back. I really love it!

I ordered a contrast top with one of my Barcelona sketches on it. I can't wait to get it and will post when I do. Please let me know your thoughts or suggestions.

Paris Terrace View

Here is the view from one of our terraces at our Paris apartment.

Finished Travel Sketchbook!

I finally completed the travel sketchbook I made for my trip to Paris, London & Barcelona. I really enjoyed sketching on the trip and even drawing from my photos once I got home. It really let me relive my trip again!

Here is a quick tour of my sketchbook and a more leisurely one below that.

A slower sketchbook tour.

Final Pages of my Travel Sketchbook

This summer, my 9 year old is attending "Camp Mom" - which means I am entertaining her most days while Chloe completes a year's worth of math with her teacher's tutoring. After math today, we worked on using Marc Taro Holmes's continuous single line sketching for some of our urban travel sketches.

We used a timer and drew all 4 of these sketches within 20 minutes. We added brush pen and watercolors afterwards.

Chloe did great with her own sketches but soon got tired. I finished my travel sketchbook with this last view out of the airplane before landing at SFO.

I'm a little sad to be done with this travel sketchbook. But on to the next!

Additions to My Travel Sketchbook

I've been adding drawings to my travel sketchbook based on photos I took during the trip. Here are my latest from Barcelona.

Barcelona Travel Sketches

We were only in Barcelona for 4 days - and there was so much to draw. I did my best in completing sketches while there, but there was not enough time to draw all that I wanted. So, I took lots of photos.

Here are some sketches I recently completed and added to my travel sketchbook.

Él Born Cultural Center - about a block from our apartment

Sketching with Miguel Herranz and Lapin near the Cultural Center

Stay tuned for more!

Devour Barcelona Food Tour

On our recent trip to Europe, we took two lovely food tours. One in Paris's Latin Quarter with Sidewalk Tours and one in Él Born in Barcelona and Barceloneta with Devour Barcelona Food Tours. They were both wonderful!

Here are the pages from my travel sketchbook detailing our Devour Barcelona Food Tour.

Casa Gispert, Pasteleria Hofmann & Bodega Fermin

Have you taken any food tours while on vacation?

Urban Sketching Practice

I have been trying to use the techniques I've learned in Marc Taro Holmes' and James Richards' Craftsy classes. Here are some recent examples:

Using a single line drawing with my extra fine Platinum pen, then adding darks with my Kuretake brush pen, finally adding watercolors

Sketching at a recent SF Giants game - it was cold!!

Just using my Pentel brush pen at dinner last night

Sketching my girls after dinner just using watercolors directly

Sketching at the Claremont Resort with just my Pentel brush pen

Urban Sketching Commissions

Before my trip to Europe, I was lucky enough to get a commission for four art pieces of my choosing from an art lover on Instagram. Although I completed these two pieces while on my trip - stupid me left them on our plane from Barcelona to Paris! 😩

So, armed with my many photos from the trip, I put these four pieces together since coming home.

I'm so happy that my client loves them.

Highlight of My Trip!

I just happened to be in Paris in time to attend the book signing of one of my favorite artists, Lapin. Lapin is a French mobile illustrator, urban sketcher, and Sketchbook Skool teacher living in Barcelona. I love his style and have learned so much from his Sketchbook Skool kourse. He is definitely one of my major influencers for my artwork.

On June 14th, Lapin was at Artazart, an amazing design and art bookstore in the 10th arrondisement in Paris, to sign his new book, paris je t'aime. We made the trip out to Artazart and took the Metro - getting off one the wrong stop, about a mile away from the shop. On the way, my 9 year old, Chloe, was wondering how many people would be in line for the signing and whether Lapin would invite us over to his house for coffee and show us his sketchbooks, etc. I warned her not to get her hopes up as that was not likely to happen.

We were one of the first to arrive and waited patiently for Lapin. In fact, Chloe bought a little book to illustrate while we were waiting. And I was lucky enough to pick up not only paris, je t'aime, but also one of Lapin's other books that I had been wanting, Barcelona, Modernisme, Beyond Gaudi.

After much waiting, we were able to get Lapin's signature and also mentioned that we will be going to Barcelona the next day. To my surprise and delight, Lapin offered to meet us there in two days for a sketch!

Lapin started this signature in Paris and finished it two days later in Barcelona.

When we met in Barcelona, Lapin drew Chloe and me!

In our copy of the Barcelona, Modernisme, Beyond Gaudi copy

I had told Lapin when we sat down that I was showing Miguel Herranz's Sketchbook Skool's lessons the day before since Miguel was sketching El Born's Cultural Center, right where we were meeting. Lapin called Miguel and asked him to meet us as he lives very nearby in Barcelona. Miguel is an amazing illustrator and Sketchbook Skool teacher, so I was very excited to meet him and have the opportunity to discuss art and share sketchbooks with him as well!

It was so much fun to share my sketchbooks with them and to view theirs. We also talked a lot about art and what they are working on (Lapin has issued 5 books this year! and Miguel just completed one). I also tried to draw Lapin, but it was very hard for me to do so while we were talking. So, I started this at our meeting and finished it later.

Lapin's card with his self-portrait is affixed above  my drawing. — Lapin's card with his self-portrait is affixed above my drawing.

Meeting Lapin and Miguel was the highlight of my trip. And afterward, Chloe told me, "I told you so, Mom!"