October: In My Pencil Case
I can’t quite believe that it’s nearing the end of October and we’re officially into Autumn here in the UK. I don’t know if I have a favourite time of the year, but I always feel ready for the change whenever one season draws to a close and a new one begins. Maybe I like the bit just before a season changes, like when Summer slowly starts to fade into Autumn or when Winter thaws into Spring. I don’t know, what I do know is that I’ve been enjoying those crisp sunshiny days and I’ve been tweaking what I take out drawing with me on location both for practical reasons but also to reflect the different colours and textures that I’m noticing.
This month I went to Paris with my lovely friends Emma and Harriet and we did lots of exploring and drawing and general catching up. It was so nice to sit in cafe’s drawing Paris in the Autumn and I especially loved all the different types of coats people wore and the way that the leaves were just on the cusp of changing colour. In anticipation of all the drawing, I packed EVERYTHING and it was probably a bit too much, especially when there were times where we were standing up drawing and rummaging through an enormous, jam-packed pencil case was sliiightly impractical. One thing that also usually happens around this time of year, is that I stop taking out my messy paint palate as I find that the paint takes so much longer to dry in the colder months.
Whilst we were away Emma very kindly gave me a smaller pencil case and I have been really enjoying the way that it makes me think more carefully about what I take out - it also means that things are easier to find as well! I thought I would show you what I’m currently using, what I think I might need to take out and what I might put in. Hope that makes sense!
Here’s what’s in there at the moment:
These are water based brush pens, I like them because you can smudge them a bit and they behave a little bit like watercolour when you put a bit of water on them.
From left to right:
Faber Castel Watercolour Marker, Tombow Brush Pens and an Ecoline brush pen.
Lots of pinks and oranges and three tinnnnyyyy Mars Black pencils. This happened last year too, I stopped using Indigo as much and begin using Mars Black more, maybe it has something to do with the seasons. There’s a mix of Carandache Illuminance, Derwent and Holbein pencils here.
Ink pens I brought in Paris. I’m not sure what the one on the left is called - it says brush sign pen on the side. I really like the way the brush works but I think I maybe would have preferred it in a darker colour. The one on the right is a Sennelier ink brush. I love the the way it makes marks but I genuinely thought I was buying Sepia and have somehow ended up with a glittery iridescent black. I don’t mind it, but have been wondering why all my inky experiments have a glittery sheen!
I’m really enjoying using Liquitex pens in my Observational drawing. My favourite is the Parchment colour, but I think I’m going to be adding a couple more into my pencil case.
My ArtGraf tin, Neocolour 2’s and my water brush pen. I think I want to add a few more of my Neocolours back into my pencil case as I’ve been missing using them and I think it might be because I don’t have the colour choice that I would normally have if I was carrying around my little tin. I wonder whether I could squeeze the tin in?
These are all the materials when they are on the page. Since doing the Observation and Experiment module as part of my MA, I do tend to look at colour palates more and have really enjoyed spending time doing this, especially if I’ve been feeling a bit stuck.
OK, so I didn’t actually take anything out apart from the iridescent ink pen, but I did squeeze in 2 more brush pens, 3 Liquitex pens and 2 more Neocolours. This is why I think this small pencil case might be good for me - who knows.
If you’d like to read a bit more about how I worked on being a bit more confident drawing outside, I wrote a blog post back in June about my time spent drawing in Cornwall. You can find it here.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here! See you at the end of November.
Lucy x