Tag: watercolor journaling

Poppies. And daffodils. And a new travel watercolor idea…with magnets, tin, and paint!

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So after watching “Following the White Rabbit” set up her palette  on Youtube, I was inspired to look around and see if I had a similar sized tin. I found two. One is a Pentalic drawing pencil tin, the other BARELY larger, a Sketchbook watercolor pencil tin. The tiny bit of size difference allowed the Sketchbook tin to close perfectly over my half pans, and fit an extra row of pans, too (or brushes, if I prefer, later) Plus, it’s pink and cute.

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It’s slim, lightweight, already painted white inside, and EXACTLY holds three rows of 9 half pans, so I can use it in the studio or out and about. I filled it with lots of Daniel Smith, a few Schmincke, 2 QoR, and even one A.Gallo paint.

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(yeah this is what my table generally looks like)

 

I ordered THIS magnetic tool wristband from Amazon for under $10. (Arrived in two days… bless you, Amazon) Some of the other bands’ reviews said the magnets weren’t strong enough, so check reviews carefully if you don’t get this same one… this one is quite strong enough for my needs! (You see where I’m going with this?)

I added super strong little magnets (Found HERE on Amazon) to a little plastic cup with a screw on lid, and to the bottom of a swatch card I made of the colors in my palette, set the whole thing on my wrist and was ready to try a painting… (I use E 6000 glue because I have it… there may be other glue that works for these magnets as well. Somehow between December 1st and today I have used 99 of these little magnets!)

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This worked great, and I THINK might be even better once I take it “on location” somewhere, because I’ll have my etchr bag with me to rest my arm on! It would fit ANY size tin, and I have much smaller ones if I want to use them instead, but this tin is very lightweight.

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So what do you think? Love the idea, or hate it? What type of things have you tried to make plain air or urban sketching more convenient?

-Indigo watercolor journal (I like the paper, I don’t like the spiral binding), Daniel Smith paint (Perylene red, lemon yellow, quin gold, green apatite, Uniball Micro Deluxe pen

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I purchased this 4×6 Pentalic Accordion Fold Dream Catcher Watercolor sketch book January 6th, for $7.99. I was afraid to start it! I’d seen a youtube artist, Drawing Wiff Waffles, do a very cute scene in it, and just couldn’t think how to use it. In the end, it fit PERFECTLY inside the tiny zipper bag I wanted to take for my art supplies on my trip to California recently. AND, it had exactly the right number of double pages, using both front and back, for a title page, and one double page per day! (I included the Amazon link for the book, but there’s also a drawing book instead of watercolor book, if you prefer. The regular pentalic watercolor journals are very nice, too!)

It was Fabulous using it. I loved it!! I could bleed my design over a bit to the next page if I wanted to, but I didn’t have to. It was inexpensive enough I didn’t stress too much (as you’ll see from my entries!!) and the small pages meant I could capture something, but didn’t have to spend much time on anything. (well, some of it I finished at home, anyway)

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I didn’t get a shot of the edge, but very thin… maybe 1/4 inch thick?

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How cute is that??

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Title page: That’s supposed to be a sunset, shaped like mickey’s iconic ears… the top ones got a little solar-system-ish.

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My favorite two pictures were done on the plane… a “selfie” of me and Mark in our seats on the plane, and a picture of the fruit and cheese tray we bought in flight. (actually really delicious!)

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We went on business, so I tried some random seminar-people-shots…

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More random folks walking to a big meeting (7000 people! You’d think I could have drawn more people in that group…) and a random hotel plant. I later met two of the people walking 4 in a line… the two on the left had such great outfits on! A lot of personality. Not that the two on the right DIDN’T… but I felt like I was meeting celebrities when I met the two on the left, and wanted to tell them I’d drawn them! But, then it occurred to me, that may not make a great first impression. My husband already knew them, so maybe it is less creepy than it seems??

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Wednesday morning brought the final seminar meetings, from afternoon on we were on our own. Disneyland! It rained, but just enough to keep (normal) people away. And we saw Minnie. (Also, my favorite new shoes)

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Using Uber for the first time was a big deal! It was supposed to rain all day, and did a bit in the middle, so we went to a very cool little area of town for lunch (super cool, and yet I drew an uber map instead???) and went to a movie. It was Valentines Day! We also got a heart shaped Shakeys pizza delivered. I was SOOOO excited, because I loved Shakeys as a kid and literally can still taste it. Sadly… it is not the same recipe. Not bad, but different 😦 The salad was excellent, though!

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Friday at Disneyland’s California Adventure. VERY fun park. Small. Prone to crowding. Great. (Rained a bit) I bought some pins.

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Saturday, no rain. Sun, sun, sun! Oh, and guess what we hadn’t realized??? A holiday weekend. Yeah. So really absolutely miserable at Disneyland. I’m glad we went a bit Wednesday night. Captured some Disney princess hands at the big parade… (the ladies were prettier than this, sorry ladies.)

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Saturday night’s dinner made it onto this page, and not much more.

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(Also… when did a flight from west coast to east coast become three hours long???? That’s crazy! And awesome.)

I apologize for waiting so long to post this. Honestly, it wasn’t as gorgeous as I’d imagined it, and so I put it off!! Put it is great fun to look at. Maybe I’ll do another for some of the memories I didn’t include! I highly recommend this for a short trip or a themed book. Low commitment and lots of fun to use.

If you follow the link I made at the top, I do get a few cents on each purchase made, but Amazon doesn’t charge any more. If you find it cheaper somewhere else, link it below for us! What would you use this accordion journal for?