What Makes A Sketching Day Fun For You?

Spring is still struggling to show its head here in Quebec.  It’s raining here today,  but yesterday was gorgeous.  Heck, we got all the way up to 68F!  So I grabbed my sketchbook and headed out to wander the back streets, looking for something new to sketch.  I went to an area I hadn’t been before.

It was a residential area, constructed during the early 20th Century.  Many of the buildings had a lot of peeling paint and some even had molding pieces missing or damaged.  But there were some gems too.

But I was drawn to a fairly small, simple house, mostly because of its bright colors and absolutely immaculate condition.  I think someone must dust the exterior regularly.  Obviously its residents cared about their home.

I set up across the street and started drawing it.  Here’s what my finished sketch looked like.  I hadn’t carried my painting gear with me so I added color at home, after dinner.  The sketch was done in my 10×7 Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook using a Lamy Al-Star and Platinum Carbon Black ink.   Here it is with color added.

One difference you’ll see between the finished drawing and the actual house is that the shade is pulled in the window on the right.  During my session, that shade went up and a little, round-faced old lady looked out at me.  I envisioned the dialog.  “Hey Clarence, there’s a guy out there staring at our house.  Looks like he’s making something in his lap.  Should I shoot him?”

Alas, there were no shots.  this is Canada, after all (grin).

 

 

Urban Sketcher’s Kit Bag

This is a quick post in response to questions asked in the Artist Journal Workshop forum on Facebook that resulted from a photo I posted of my field gear.  They wanted to know about my field bag so here it is.

I bought it from Mountain Equipment CO-OP for $21CDN.  Before we get started, I should say that this bag is with me everywhere I go and thus it’s used as a general service bag as well as my art bag.  I’ve always got sketching materials with me but when I go out for a ‘serious’ sketching session I add the paints, water, brushes and larger sketchbooks.

The bag has five main areas as well as a small pen compartment.  All but the back compartment can be zippered shut but I rarely do this as the cover flap closes things up enough for me.

I use compartment A to hold several pens.  Which ones I carry changes at my whim but generally I’ve got half a dozen or so and I think I could clip at least 10 of them into this pocket.  If you look closely behind this compartment you’ll see a small, open pocket.  This is handy for carrying shopping lists and notes.  For instance, I’ve got lists of all the Tombow brush pen, colored pencils, etc. I own so when I’m in an art store, I have those lists with me.

Compartment B is large enough to hold a pencil box, a small writing notebook, watercolors (W&N artist watercolors in a Cotman sketcher box),and other stuff if need be.

Compartment C is the largest and the workhorse of the bag.  You can put a 9×12 sketchbook in it but you can’t zipper it as the sketchbook sticks out just a bit.  My Stillman & Birn 10x7s fit nicely, though.  Sometimes it also holds a 5.5×8 book.  This is where I put my camera, paper towels and a collapsible umbrella if I need it.  If I carry only one sketchbook and the camera, I can stick binoculars in here.

Compartment D is in the cover.  I’ve carried a small Moleskine there in the past but I haven’t used it much simply because I haven’t needed the space.  While there’s lots of room here, it’s best for light things as otherwise it makes the cover hard to flip up when you need access to the other compartments.

Looking at the bag from the back, there is a large, thin compartment with no zipper.  I have a couple thin, 5×8 homemade sketchbooks, made from toned paper, that live here.  I also have a fomecore backing board for these sketchbooks in this compartment.  Because this compartment is up against my side as I walk, I don’t put anything in here that’s lumpy but the sketchbooks seem happy there.

Here’s a photo of the typical contents of my bag when I’m out on a sketching session.  I stuff all the ‘wet’ things (marked D) in a large ziplock bag before dropping them into compartment C.

When I head out, the back looks like this, with my Walk Stool clipped under the cover.  It makes a compact rig and I’ve been very happy with it.

 

Stillman & Birn “Beta” Sketchbook

When I got interested in sketching I found it pretty easy to find good watercolors, brushes, pencils, and pens.  What was harder was finding sketchbooks that served my purposes as a pen/ink/watercolor sketcher.  I spent a lot of money and now own a bunch of sketchbooks with 2-3 sketches done in each before I rejected them.

Then a couple artists started talking about Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.  I bought one.  Then another.  Then another.  And I’ve never looked back.  They are simply the best I’ve found.  Mostly I’ve been using sketchbooks, both bound and spiral, from their Alpha series, which have nice, smooth, 100lb paper.  I’ve also tried the Epsilon series and while a bit smoother, I don’t really see much difference between the two but I’m a rookie so what do I know.

And over my few months of using them, lots of other sketchers have started using them too.  We’ve all reported to Stillman & Birn that their Alpha (white) and Gamma (ivory) sketchbooks can handle a lot more water/washes than their advertising suggests.  Many of us are as surprised as S&B are about this, as 100lb paper is about the minimum for doing washes in my experience.  But there’s something about the sizing of the paper that causes it to act ‘heavier’ than it is when accepting watercolor.

It’s not that you can’t buy heavier paper from Stillman & Birn.  They have a Beta (white) and Delta (ivory) series that contain 180lb paper.  But Stillman & Birn advertise these series as being “rough” paper and that’s the last thing one wants if you’re going to be pushing an ink pen over the surface.  So I’ve avoided them…until now.

I’m a curious kind of guy so I’ve now got 6×8 spiral sketchbooks from the Beta and Delta series and…shazaam…the paper isn’t rough at all.  In fact, it’s smoother than some cold-press watercolor papers I’ve tried.  These papers do have a bit more tooth than my Alphas but I got quite excited when I received them because the paper is very heavy, smooth, and inviting.

A quick test demonstrated that my fountain pens like these papers.  I tried a Kaweco Al-Sport, Lamy Safari, Noodler’s Ahab, Pilot Prera, and Hero calligraphy pens.  I tried Platinum Carbon Black, Noodler’s Lexington Gray, and Noodler’s Bernanke Black ink.  All the lines were clean and crisp.  It might be my imagination but I feel that watercolor washes are easier to do with these papers too but I can present no data other than ‘seems like’ to support that view.

And so this morning I got up, looked outside and saw the sun.  I headed out with my new Beta sketchbook in search of something to sketch.  This lasted about 15 minutes.  It was sunny, but ugh; it was cold… cold… cold.  Temps were only a couple degrees below freezing but the winds were howling and so being the sissy that I am, I hustled myself back home.

Not to be defeated by Mother Nature, I went through my photo library and came up with a photo of a sign I’ve been wanting to sketch.  It hangs high over an intersection in our downtown area and I love the flourescent pink lighting around its periphery.  I started sketching, not fully realizing that I had no clue how to draw flourescent lighting.

I’m going to really like this Beta sketchbook.  At 6×8 it’s a good size for portable sketching, though I’ve become quite attached to my 10×7 Alpha sketchbooks.  Here’s the end result.  I did this sketch with a Pilot Prera and Lexington Gray ink.

When Sketchers Look Up

Once I made a couple of sketchbooks with toned paper, I started looking for something to sketch in them.  This search coincided with my looking up as I walked and the result were these two sketches.  Both were made on Canson Mi-Teinte colored papers.  Not as nice for washes as the Stillman & Birn sketchbooks I’m used to but I still had a lot of fun creating these sketches.  Hope you like them.

One of the many turrets that grace buildings here in Quebec City. Canson Mi-Teintes paper (5x7), Hero calligraphy pen w/Platinum Carbon Black ink. W&N artist colors

One of the things I learned from doing these sketches is that looking up to sketch is difficult.  Not only is there an extra perspective dimension to deal with, but just the head bobbing up and down seemed to make it harder for me to create the sketch.

I found this cluster of transformers and their associated wires interesting. Canson Mi-Teinte (5x7), Hero pen with PCB ink.

Making Sketchbooks With Colored Papers

There are dozens of videos and blog posts demonstrating how to make sketchbooks.  This isn’t really one of them.  Then again, it sorta, kinda, is.  I’m writing it because I mentioned that I’d made a couple small sketchbooks using brown paper in the Facebook group, Artist’s Journal Workshop.  One of the regulars in that group asked if I could show how I made them.  This post is what you might label a “Cliff Notes” (does that date me too much?) version of how to make a simple sketchbook.  I encourage you to surf through the YouTube videos for better explanations.

What are we talking about here?

These are the two sketchbooks I’ve made.  Both are identical in construction.  Both are 5.5×8 in size.  The one on the left contains brown pages, cut from plain, cheap postage wrapping paper.  I find this paper works well for pen drawings and you can even add light washes but it’s not very happy with too much water, however.  The cover of this sketchbook is made by cutting a file folder to size.  The benefit of this approach is that it’s already folded and the material is designed to act as a cover.  In short, it’s ideal and easy.  The binding tape (optional) is gaffer’s tape, a black, a fabric tape used to hold everything and anything together.  Think of it as a heavy-duty masking tape, which could substitute for this purpose.

The second sketchbook is composed of several colors of Canson mi-teintes paper.  I believe this is listed as a pastel paper but people use it for pen and watercolor sketches as well.  It’s not quite as smooth as the brown paper but it’s much thicker.  The cover comes from a 12×12 sheet of heavy, patterned paper I got in the scrapbook section of the art store.

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Besides the paper materials, what tools are required?

  • straight-edge
  • knife (Xacto, roller, or paper cutter)
  • measuring device
  • something to poke holes in the signatures (the folded paper) – I used a compass point
  • large needle
  • thread (see below)
  • scissors

Cut and prep the paper

To make a 5.5×8 sketchbook, you need a bunch (I used 6) of paper squares cut 11×8.  I’ll leave you to your devices to achieve this.  Then you need to fold each sheet so that you have a two-page signature leaf that’s 5.5×8 inches.  Use something hard and with an edge to crease the fold as tightly as you can.  I found it desirable to actually iron (low heat) the brown paper pages as the paper came off a roll and tended to retain that curve.

Once you have these pages, simply stick them, one inside the other, creating a single, 12-page (or 24 if you count both sides) signature.  The inner pages will stick out slightly beyond the outer pages.  Trim them if this concerns you.

Cutting and prep the cover

If you’re using a file folder for your cover, just cut it to fit around the paper.  Otherwise, fold your cover stock in half and cut it to fit around your paper.  That’s all there is to making a cover.

Sew it together

There are lots of fancy ways to sew up sketchbooks.  This ain’t one of those ways.  My goal wasn’t to replace my beautiful double-stitched Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.  It was to tie a few pages of colored paper together so I could sketch on them.  So…easy-peasy…we don’t do hard.

Before we get started, notice that there are three holes in the spine of this sketchbook.  These are punched before we sew.  Make the holes a bit larger than your threading needle to make the sewing easy but not so large that things get sloppy.  Punching those holes could be considered the ‘hard part’ but remember, this is easy-peasy sketchbook making.

Get out your phone book and flop it open on a table.  Open your sketchbook to its middle and stick the spine into the centerfold of phonebook phone book.  Take your sharp thingie (you chose your tool), and stab through the entire sketchbook halfway down from the top and through the fold of the sketchbook.  The phone book will hold everything in alignment and provide a place for your sharp gizmo to exit.  Easy peasy.  Now repeat that process an inch from the top and an inch from the bottom.  Voila, the “hard part” is done.

Let the sewing begin.  Use whatever thread you like but it should be fairly thick.  There are special bookbinding threads available but I just used several strands of cheap embroidery thread and a large embroidery needle.  There isn’t much to this…really.  It’s harder to explain it than to do it.  I’ve made a crude drawing of the thread path as an attempt to eliminate the proverbial 1000 words a picture replaces.  The green arrows are when the thread is outside the book; the red arrows indicate the thread inside the book.

There is one thing to note.  The thread going into the center of the book, and the thread coming out of the center of the book, should be on opposite sides of the long run of thread that goes from top to bottom on the outside of the book.

Once you do this threading, just grab the two ends of the thread and pull everything tight.  Then, tie a double knot in the two ends.  Notice that this will cinch down on that long thread running along the spine.  That’s why the ends need to be on opposite sides.  I hope that is more clear than it sounds (grin).

Cut off at least one of the loose ends.  Whether you cut the other end depends upon whether you want a long end to wrap around your sketchbook to keep it closed.  I did this for my mi-teinte paper book because this thicker paper doesn’t want to close completely flat.  I cut both ends on the brown paper sketchbook and then covered the entire spine with tape.  I think this actually provides a better, cleaner solution but to each his/her own.

So there you have it – how I made a couple of quicky sketchbooks.  Hope this helps someone.