Most books on sketching will start by telling you how much fun sketching is and how little equipment is required to do it.  A pencil and a piece of paper is sufficient, they say.  And it’s true…sort of.  But it’s a lot more fun if you buy one of each kind of pencil, pen and paint and try every flat drawing surface on the market today…or so it seems if I look around my office.

If you’re a street sketcher, however, there are other things you need.  The most basic thing, of course, is something in which to carry your one of everything, or some subset thereof.  AND, if you’re like me and aren’t comfortable sketching while standing, you need a stool.

I carry a Walk Stool myself.  I’ve owned it for a couple years and use it several times a week.  In spite of this heavy use it still looks like new.  It’s light; it’s comfortable; and it folds up small.  But it only works if you take it with you and that was my problem last Tuesday when I went to the Musée de la Civilisation to sketch.  I’d forgotten to put it in my bag.

There were lots of things to sketch.  There were lots of places to sit.  The problem was that they weren’t in the same place.  I wandered, and wandered, looking for a place that would provide both subject and seat.  About the third circuit of the museum I my criterion for a suitable place reached a sufficiently low point that I realized that I could sit in the hallway and look through windows at the back of some of the exhibits in the Native American exhibition.  The back of this dancer is the result.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black