Slow Road to Trimming My Tools: Part 1

After some travels this summer, I made this sketch note to myself:

I've been there before and was usually able to remove extra stuff within one "re-packing" session. But this time, I noticed a resistance on many levels. I had so many things in my backpack I felt a need to separate different drawing tools into different themes/bags/boxes, and then I was not sure what was it what box and what exactly I liked or used the last time? And I kept getting some glimpses about "that great tool that once was amazing," where is it? After some time, I realized that I've spent more time looking at my tools and putting them from one bag into another than actually drawing, and that is when I knew that I was in real trouble. Because now I had more bags in front of me than before, and zero willpower to make any choices about what to use in my sketch. I ended up not drawing on that day (apart from the following doodle, which I did on my iPad after I upgraded to procreate, and saw all the new brushes, which did not help with the previous situation).

So I stopped and decided to look at what people are doing, talk to friends about this, give this transformation some time but make a log of what approaches I am trying, what is working and what is not and get myself out there sketching more. And I decided to share the process as I go - because I am sure I am not the only one and because this way I will have something to refer to.

First, I asked myself what are some of my favorite tools and what kinds of marks I am after in them. So I cleaned and refilled my Ackerman Pen. Here is a page created with it right after. 

This en is not an easy character to deal with - but I remembered that when I make it work, it brings me joy. Testing out what marks I can make and what I really liked, how different holds gave me different feels, was the most useful part of this experiment.

Next I took my Pilot Parallel Pen with a modified nib (I cannot believe I never made a post about making it! - not to self: make one!). So I took this pen to an outing and drew with it almost 100% blindly. I made a sketch I enjoy looking at even right now - because I remember looking at the scene without breaking eye contact for a longer than usual time and I remember this time and scene so vividly! 

And then a friend gave me a bunch of super bright acrylic inks, and I found one more to complement the trio, and I painted over this sketch - I had so much fun, I kept bringing those inks with me to a couple of outings after this. When I asked myself why, I realized that with these inks I can mix colors only by overlapping them on the page directly, and I can paint super fast, too. There are very few choices - I have only three bottles and a big brush.  

I tried overlapping these inks with other tools and made more notes:

I think the most useful part was actually writing down what I like and then trying to use that one particular thing on the next sketch I had a chance to do. I hoped to apply this thinking to my packing for the travel  but ended up with too many art supplies (as you can guess flying with acrylic inks or a leaky fountain pen in tow is a bit involved). So I took a different approach to choosing materials for the trip - and hope to tell you more about it in the next post!

On My Table: Beginning of November 2025

First of November found me at the table, sorting through my sketches done on a trip to the East Coast of the USA. We saw some amazing fall colors, had a chance to connect with dear family members, and met a porcupine. I am going to do a set of posts about the trip, but for now, all of this stuff was dominating my table, as you can see. 

I took a very reasonable set of tools with me on purpose (way more than I used to take at some point but compared to recent trends it was very reasonable) and I missed some things on the trip, so one of the first things I did after returning is I made a list of things that I was reaching for and now finding and tried to find exactly what would be "that" - hence the swatching of all the "browns" and search for grays and greens. 

And I kind of missed the sketch that ended up as a gift (I very rarely never tear pages from my sketchbooks - but this was a special occasion. And I am very happy that it ended up being a gift to this particular family member! But since I missed it and a story that it created - I drew it from a photo that I took :)

Reading Notes: New Collection of Sketchbooks!

Just in case, if you did not know this about me,  I am a huge fan of sketchbooks :) I enjoy flipping through sketchbooks of other people when I have a chance (Sketcherfest was a great example of where one might do this for a whole day!). And I always look for books that are essentially collections of other people's sketchbooks. Be that one artist or many under one cover - they are always a waterfall of inspiration and motivation. I have quite a few in my own library - it all started with Julia Rothman's "Drawn In" and then my collection grew quite a bit. 

So when I saw that two artists whose work I follow closely (Studio Takeuma and Tom Froese) were featured on the cover of this collection, I hunted it down through the library (hurray for libraries - the fact that you can get almost any book for free is one of the things I will never stop cheering for and be amazed at! Support your libraries - if you are in the USA, the American Library Association is a great source of information on how to support them - especially during uncertain times like right now, when book bans are on the rise and library funding is being cut. 

So, the book is "Sketched Out: Artistic Sketchbooks and Journals Unveiled," and it is a collection of sketches from artists. There are some interview questions and short information too. I knew before (and admire) some of the artists in this book: Jenny Adam and Marina Grechanik. But many were new, and in these days when algorithms pollute your instagram, it became especially hard to track down new artists. I have a system to follow what people are doing (and avoid looking at the stream that is being pushed at me), but it works for people who are already in my cone of interest, and I was glad to add some names to my list. 

Here are some photos from the book (click on the image to see it large). 

My Own Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums (aka Tropaeolum) are one of my (many) favorite flowers. Between their gorgeously round leaves and endlessly overlapping stems are flowers of the shape that sends me back to the drawing board almost as often as irises do. And of course, their fiery colors are amazing! I searched this blog and realized that I had not posted my nasturtium sketches by themselves even once. But now I have my own plants to refer to! It took forever to grow them from seeds, and out of many baby plants, only a few survived. But they are of three different colors and are still blooming! (Hopefully, it will self-seed and I will have these beauties to remind me to go back and draw them until I like the result!). 

More Little Outings

We had our first real rain of the season - and for a couple of days, between the weather and a gazillion things on my to-do list, I was left with my window and my own hand (drawn left-handedly - a record of some wheel-throwing injuries) for sketching. But then a gorgeous sky called for me to go out and paint it with my pocket gouache kit!

Nonagenarian Update: fall of 2025

Fall is the time of the year when I try to schedule some extra visits, bring some extra colorful flowers, and food to our Nonagenarian. Shorter days and colder weather are hard for her. But she is still very much following her schedule for the day, enjoys her favorite foods, takes care of her plants, does some sewing projects, and reads a lot - mostly on a Kindle but online too. News sites are hard for her as her beloved Ukraine is suffering from russian aggressors, and as someone who lived through World War II, she does not understand how anyone might start a war again. But she follows what she reads with her hand-drawn map of Ukraine and a big world map that is always not far from her reading chair. 

Sketching People: at the Protest.

Last Saturday was a No Kings protest: people in many cities around the United States went on the streets to peacefully exercise their right to express opinions about the current administration. I packed a whole bunch of colored pencils with me, but ended up using only one pen. I did a lot of walking and talking, saw many dogs and people in great costumes (it is October after all, and everyone is gearing up for Halloween).  My hero was a mom with a couple of kids. Kids were sitting in chairs, one closer to the action, another a little further, but both had signs propped in a cup holder.  One was reading a book in the shade of a redwood tree, and the other was talking to people, asking questions about their signs and dogs. They both waved from time to time at passing bikes and cars. 

Color Pencils or Colored Pencils?

Do you say Colored Pencils or Color Pencils? 

I've been thinking about the non-existent difference in these two and how one of these options drives me nuts for quite some time now. All while using color pencils as a part of my mixed media experimentation. Here are two recent sketches that were pure colored pencil were used - without any paints and other materials. I think I would like to keep them here as a record of some ideas that I would like to go back to. 

Little Notes From Walks and Hikes

These are three sketches from different days, but they tell a story of how some of the sketching is happening these days. I always have some drawing materials with me, but recently I started using more colored pencils but my black pen is always with me. Often when I draw on location the light situation is making me move super fast - palm trees were on a super sunny day, and the paper was blinding me. Where the evening sketch was done while the sun was disappearing. When I add these little sketches from the day to my main sketchbook, I might add some notes. And sometimes all the notes are from the moment when I was sketching - like on the very last drawing - where I was trying to find with my eyes all the birds that I was able to hear - and ants were driving me away from my perching spot!

Drawing Conversations About Time Management

I am a planning maniac and a time management freak - in recovery. I've been in recovery for quite some time, but it is an uneven road. For example, it means that this week I put on my weekly plans to forget about my plans :) I do try my best to let go of my attempts to have full control of my days, but I need my support group, so I read literature on the subject and listen to podcasts, too. This week, I even went further and went to an in-person event to meet an author whose books I recommend and gift often: Oliver Burkeman. Apart from several best-selling books Oliver Burkeman has a Newsletter too. His main message is deceptively simple: it is not humanly possible to do everything you want to do, and you have a very limited amount of time, so you need to choose what it is that you want to do and actually do it - today. I listened to the talk while drawing people around me. It was an hour well spent. 

Halloween Decorations

October is the season for people to pull their skeletons out in the open and display them in all the ways that can entertain, scare, educate, and pleasure their neighbors and passers by :) It is a season to draw pumpkins, doing all sorts of things too! And it is always a season to sit with a friend on a street and draw. This was an intersection of all of these: Halloween Decorations in San Jose, California :)