My new a6-size sketchbook bag, an ‘Expand’ bag from a stall on Leeds Market. Pens were beginning to escape through holes in my previous ‘Trespass’ bag, which had become a bit overloaded. There’s a bit more breathing space in this one.
A6 Art Bag
Tag: Art Bag
Jack Wolfskin Art Bag
Just one last art bag, a Jack Wolfskin crossover bag that’s just the right size for an 8×8 inch (approx.) Pink Pig sketchbook. This is supposed to be a more serious version of a natural history art bag, including Olympus Tough camera, hand lens, pocket microscope, a geologist’s grain sorting chart and a monocular, the latter not likely to be useful as I’d always have my binoculars with me on a field trip.
The Winsor & Newton watercolour box is a bit of a work in progress. It is still basically the palette of colours that I took with me on my Richard Bell’s Britain sketching trip over 40 years ago but today I’d replace one of the reds with a permanent rose or magenta and the charcoal grey with a neutral tint or Paynes grey.
Also possibly on the transfer list would be the viridian and the dark greeny blue (indrathone?).
I might try and build up a palette that would be particularly useful for wild flowers, including an alternative violet or purple.
Art Bag
With Storm Eunice lashing the studio windows, this seemed like a good time to prepare for getting out and sketching when the spring weather comes, checking the contents of my main art bag. This was drawn in the 8×8 inch Pink Pig Ameleie sketchbook, using the Lamy pens and the Winsor & Newton professional watercolours that I keep in there.
All ready to go out sketching now , , , when the weather improves.
The Wolfskin Bag
I wanted to go inky for this 4 inch by 3 inch sketch of my Jack Wolfskin bag but then couldn’t resist adding colour because of the yellow Lamy Safari Pen and blue Buff that it contains.
It’s drawn with a Lamy Vista EF nib filled with De Atramentis Document Ink and for the Winsor & Newton watercolour I used a Daler Rowney Aquafine Sable Round 6. And I should add that it’s a Pink Pig sketchbook containing their 270 gsm Ameleie acid free paper.
Art Bags
It so good to be back in my studio and working again. I’ve just e-mailed my latest Wild Yorkshire nature diary off to the Dalesman, so it’s high time that I caught up with this online diary, which provides most of the raw material for my Dalesman articles.
It’s a month since my studio floor was taken up but there’s been a lot of work for me varnishing the new tongued and grooved timber floor and putting back my plan chest, art materials and book stock just as I’d like them (and there’s been even more work setting up our new kitchen in the room below, which is looking great).
The ‘Goldilocks’ Sketchbook
Improvements in my studio include these four Ikea Blecka hooks (above) for my small, medium and large art bags, which are hanging there ready for me to grab when I set off on a small, medium or large adventure, each complete with a selection of art materials and an A6, A5 or a square of the narrow side of A4 (that’s 8 x 8 inches) Pink Pig sketchbook. Like Goldilocks, I tend to feel that the middle sized bag is ‘just right’.
Tough Decision
On the fourth hook my new digital SLR is hanging, plus a camera bag holding my new macro and telephoto lens. It’s an Olympus OM-D E-M10II which has great possibilities for nature photography. I sold my trusty pocket-sized Olympus Tough muji on e-Bay and I’m missing it already but I’m holding off buying the latest Tough to replace it as I want to get thoroughly familiar with my digital SLR.
The drawing is in bamboo pen using Winsor & Newton black Indian ink. I wouldn’t pack this combination in my art bags as the ink, where it has formed a blotty pool, takes days to dry.
Black Bag
I’VE DRAWN this in dip pen and Winsor & Newton Indian ink then added a premixed ink wash. I used this method for my High Peak Drifter sketchbook, taking four small plastic containers of pale to dark washes with me.
This proved ideal for subjects in the Dark Peak in late winter and early spring, such as drystone walls and running water and places like Thor’s Cave but as summer approached it seemed wilfully contradictory to use the same monochrome treatment for wild flowers and butterflies. But I stuck with it to the final page, drawn one sultry early summer’s evening at Jacob’s Ladder, the zig-zag path that climbs up to the Kinderscout plateau.
I recently kitted myself out with a fresh batch of Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbooks in a range of sizes and my plan is to have art-bags ready to go in a small (A6), medium (A5) and largish (A4) sizes.
I’m still looking for a bag that is suitably compact for an A6 sketching kit, perhaps it will all go into a wallet and fit into my pocket. My growing collection of art-bags tend to flop around the studio, usually getting parked on a chair, so I’ve attached a hook to the wall and hung them there, ready to grab one depending on exactly where I’m heading;
- A National Trust organiser bag in natural canvas is ideal for what I intend to be my natural history sketchbook, an A5 landscape format spiral bound Pink Pig.
- The black Timberland backpack, a birthday present from a friend last week, is the one that I’d use for more ambitious outings, perhaps to draw whole landscapes rather than smaller details. The bag is designed to hold a laptop, so there’s plenty of room for my A4 landscape format sketchbook and it has extra compartments so that I have the option to include some more ambitious media, dip pen and bottle of ink rather than my habitual fountain pen for instance.
- Finally, hanging like a shadow behind the National Trust organiser in my sketch, there’s the black shoulder bag (described as a ‘fisherman’s bag’) that I bought at Marks & Spencer’s in Glasgow last year. This is my sketchcrawl around town bag, probably the one that I’ll take most on my errands and book deliveries. This fits my new square 8 by 8 inch holly green Pink Pig like a glove.
But the square page of the holly green sketchbook doesn’t accommodate long thin drawings; that’s why my A5 bag ended up hanging out of frame off the bottom of the page! (Pink Pig do some quirky long thin sizes, perhaps I should go for one of them for tall, thin subjects).
Inky Black Bag
I felt the need to do an inky drawing: a new nib, a new wooden pen holder and an old bottle of Indian ink, only a quarter full and turning lumpy. I bought the new bag in Marks & Spencer’s in Glasgow at the weekend. The excuse was that I needed a new one to match my outfit!
Black strikes me as a good colour for an art bag, especially if I’m tempted to go back to dip pen and Indian ink, as the odd spill won’t show. It was labelled as ‘Fisherman bag’ and made from oiled cotton, which should be water and stain resistant.
Leaning against the window ledge in my drawing, it appears square but in fact my A4 sketchbook fits snugly inside the main compartment. There are sufficient smaller pockets – six in all – to take my basic kit of art materials and other bits and pieces.
Link: Pure Cotton Cross Body Bag on the M&S website; there’s even a video of a bearded man on a remote Californian (?) road modelling a brown version of the bag and looking as if he’s wondering when the next bus will come along. Perfectly illustrates the sort of adventures I have in mind when I set off along the trail with my new art bag.