Drawing Trash Bins and Back Alleys with Friends

Back alleys were on my list for some time, but there was always something blooming or an event happening or a new building there or an interesting tree here. But this time I got my wish - a whole morning of drawing trash bins behind the actual businesses! A joyful way to spend time with friends - thank you for joining me, Suhita and Uma! Below are my sketches and process photos.

A Question About Changing Mind and a Mess of a Sketch of an Oak

I often wonder what makes me change my mind about a drawing. I liked it on location (see photo). I really did not like it later to such a degree that I  tried to fix it. I did not like the results so much that I spent quite some time writing about all kinds of things about this sketch. And now I am kind of liking it. I know that changing your mind about work as time passes is a common situation - do you know why it happens to you? Click on the image to see my comments and questions. 

On My Table: Beginning of October 2026

October 2026:

I find myself using a lot of bullet-nib Stabilo 68 markers - they are not waterproof, but there is something about the quality of line and transparency of colors that gives me a chance to find shapes by movement instead of precision.

I made some very pink things recently - I will share them soon - but pink inks and watercolors are still on my desk.

My gouache and watercolor sets need a thorough clean-up and top-off, but I was able to draw with them later that week still!

I am trying to bring fewer art supplies with me to sketching outings - so instead of taking "all that was in the bag plus all from the table", I picked a small number of things and put them in this orange bag with pockets. It worked once, but on the next day the bag was so full I was having a hard time fitting it in my backpack. Should I get a bigger backpack? lol I know the answer and am getting my "core tools" sorted out to get to my goal of not looking like a walking art store. 

I am working on some new pottery pieces and new projects - sketches all over the table. 

Drawing With Friends in San Jose

When a sketching friend is in town, it is always a reason to get together with even more sketching friends and have a little sketching party! This time, a long-time reader of this blog, a art friend of many years, an unstoppable daily sketcher, pencil-connoisseur, art supplies conversation companion, and a Mazda Miata aficionado, Tina Koyama from Seattle (known on instagram as miatagrrl, was in the Bay Area! And we got to sketch, talk art supplies, all the urban sketching news, and try (first time for me) a bunch of sweets. It was such a great get-together!! Thank you, Tina, and I hope you will visit us again - I promise I know more wild power lines for us to draw! 

Click on the image to read all the conversation bits I recorded. 

Thank you Suhita Shirodkar and Uma Kelkar for the wonderful company, laughs and sweets!

My New Ceramics Adventures: Glaze Drip!

Two recent glazing experiments turned out very pretty (I am a human with a soft spot for everything blue :) but this glaze is runny (meaning when it is going through high-temperature firing in a kiln it becomes more viscous than other glazes and might drip. And that is exactly what happened to my two vases! But since it was minimal, I consulted with my pottery team, donned safety glasses and a particle mask, and picked up a Dremel tool. Now I thought that dremel was a tool - like a hammer or pliers. But it is a Xerox! (meaning Dremel is a company name - one of the manufacturers of compact rotary tools!)

And in just a few minutes I got sharp edges sanded down and vases suitable for drawing, filling with flowers and sticks, and gifting :)

Tomatoes With Stories!

My local farmer's market has several vegetable stands that sell tomatoes that are very tasty. Some of the stands also sell tomatoes that are worth drawing. These two circles do not overlap completely, but recently a new entry into my Venn diagram materialized! An unexplored stand appeared on the corner of the market and immediately caught my attention: their tomatoes had stories! And people were very much interested in reading all about what taste to expect, pairings that would work best, and such. 

Somehow, after a couple of weeks, the stall disappeared - but I got some interesting tomatoes to try! Which reminded me that I have a family member who is cultivating tomatoes - even during war - in Kharkiv Ukraine - perhaps one day I get to draw all her amazing tomatoes! 

A Joy of Acrylic Markers: Mixing Things Up!

This is a three-blog-post story of my experiments with acrylic markers from Arrtx - part 3.

After some pages of marker-only sketches, things started to mix in - below you will see how my main joys of gouache and printmaking, and ink, started mixing with the markers. Pencils and crayons chimed in for additional texture, and soon I did not even know what I used where :)

A Joy of Acrylic Markers: Limited Palette Experiments.

This is a three-blog-post story of my experiments with acrylic markers from Arrtx - part 2. (part 3 is here)

After the initial joy of having all the colors in the world (and quickly beginning to list the colors that I need in addition), I decided to take a disciplined approach and picked two limited sets to work with for a period of time. It helped me to try more things with these few markers than I did with all 160 of them :) 

Here are some examples:

I found it very useful in drawing people - even though colors are wildly off, having a limited set of tools forced me to see some things differently:

But then I started mixing markers with other techniques!

A Joy of Acrylic Markers: Two DIfferent Sets of Arrtx Reviewed

I've seen many people enjoy Arrtx Markers and I wanted to try them for some time. A month ago, my wish came true, and I got a package from Arrtx with two gigantic boxes of Arrtx markers - of two different types- to compare them! 

Let me introduce you to the two different sets and the differences that I found: the top marker in my sketch below is a more well-known type of Arrtx marker (I was sent a 90A Cotton-Core Acrylic Marker Set). And the bottom marker in my sketch below is 60-Color Direct Liquid Acrylic Marker Set.

After a month of experiments, my main thought is that having this brush tip dramatically widens my relationship to acrylic markers, which were dominated by bullet nibs or chisel nibs of Posca, Molotow, and Liquitex markers before. 

Quick drying speed is a new benefit for me, and I liked it a lot. Overlapping colors, materials, and techniques have never been this fast! I can fix an edge on a sketch and immediately go back to working with wet media or overlap it with dry without contaminating layers.

Some colors are very opaque, and some have transparency in them (layered, they become opaque) - but I personally really enjoyed this option of having a range of opacities to play with. 

I now did a whole bunch of experiments with these markers, shared these with various friends to broaden my horizons for how different people use markers, and am finding more and more options as I go. Now it is time to share some of the results!

My first challenge was: how do I choose which color to use when you have so many??!!

This is a great problem to have, of course, and I enjoyed having so many colors to capture all the colors I see! The images (and read notes) below are the result of "let me try everything" drawings! You will find layering examples, smudge tests and all sorts of notes on what I am enjoying and wishing for.

I will share my limited-color experiments separately. 

This is a three-blog-post story of my experiments with acrylic markers from Arrtx - this is part 1, and here are part 2 and part 3)

Walking Sketches and Thinking about Changing my Pocket Sketching Kit

What unites these random sketches? They are tiny notes from my daily walks. My pocket tools are asking to be changed, so all of these done with something different that I tried for a little while: the first sketch is a fountain pen with a flexible nib - a joy to draw with! (I added color later at home) - I love working with it, but the fact that it might leak in my pocket kept bothering me - so it will probably stay in a more "I am going out to draw" bag. 

Second sketch is a gray-body uniball pen, which I carry with me often, and even though it sometimes stops working for me at high altitudes (or after I use it on the plane), it is one of the most reliable tools I know and love. Right there with the ballpoint pens. The watercolor set that I used, though, needs an update - it is lovely because it is tiny, but colors need a refresh. 

And the last sketch is another favorite of mine - Pentel Pocket Brush pen with my pocket printmaking tools, and I added color in pencil at home. I loved using this kit! And that cat really had A BOWTIE! 

Essential Fall Cleanup Tasks in the Studio

For various reasons, I've been working "from a bag" for most of the summer. After some time, my tools become much more curated (which is a good thing), but they are getting a lot of use and not much care. Now that I am getting into the "fall projects" state of mind, I am on a mission to get my equipment in better order. 

1. Over the summer, I got a pencil sharpener, which simplified a situation with "100 dull blue pencils" - Henry works hard, has very few complaints: some unexpected sprays with watercolor, a couple of smudges with gouache, and one recent ink soak. 

2. I did a "big refill" on my fountain pens, did some cleaning, checked nibs on dip pens and such. And now I have them in two rotation boxes (I do this from time to time to make sure that I use my tools and not just have them sitting) 

3. And I recently took time to change blades on all my knives. There was a bit of pliers action to make some blades move, but all ended well. I cannot emphasize how nice it is to have a sharp knife. A gift! 

All images are clickable for larger size and reading my notes on inks and such. 

A Little Trip to Hidden Villa

I had a wonderful time observing animals and humans interact at my favorite local farm. Pigs are my favorite subject there, and I can always count on a few meetings with them. And this time there were some amazing chickens and goats, and the sheep were great too. I used my flexible nib fountain pen and my pocket printmaking tool here. Very small kit - enjoyed it a lot! 

Thoughts on Dahlias

I've been thinking about adding dahlias to my little garden, though I hear they are hard to grow - mostly because you have to remember to take the tubers out of the ground and then put them back in, and it has to happen at a certain time. It does not sound too complicated by itself, but the way my garden works (so far) is that as soon as I take something out, I put something else in. So there might be no place for them by the time I should stick them back in - some other lovely plant might be happily growing in their spot. And it feels a little unfair. Dahlias are also maddening for me to draw - but I love trying :) Perhaps I will get a plant too and see if it can survive without leaving the soil for the winter? 

Trip to See the Pacific Ocean

It is always amazing to see the ocean, even just for a little bit. I got a very good reason to go look at it and visit a park that I've not been to in a long while: Año Nuevo State Park! Plus I had a chance to stop at several coastal parks around and saw at least two large snakes, both of which disappeared too quickly for me to identify. It was a beautifully sunny day, but the wind was making it quite cold. 

A pelican with a damaged wing walked along the beach to the place where I was drawing near a little lagoon, but State Park workers told us that there is nothing we can do to help the dear bird - if it was outside California State Park boundaries, there are services that help damaged birds, but inside - the nature should take its course. 

I managed to bring a backpack full of art supplies but forgot water and paper clips, and the wind was taking apart both my sketchbook and tearing marker caps out of my hand! There were a few elephant seals, and we were late to see a promised couple of ospreys, but a family of turkey vultures posed for us on a tree above the sand dunes, and a spectacle of various sea birds diving for fish never gets old! 

On My Table: Beginning of September 2026

September found me with several sketching experiments happening at once. Some inspired by ideas for new workshops, some by the markers I recently got (thank you Arrtx for sending me two sets to play with!), and some inspired by an ongoing conversation about limiting the number of tools I carry in my backpack (it is heavy!), and some CMYK brushpens I've been playing on and off.

In addition to that, I learned that my white Uniball Signo pen can be brought to life after refusing to write (I will draw the exact process in my sketchbook today!), and my craft knife needs new blades urgently. I've been using stretchy electric tape to track which markers I use most. And I have picked 2 lovely colors from Ukrainian Watercolor manufacturer Rosa to include in my experiments this month. All that will show in blog posts very soon! 

Slow-Opening Irises

I recently found a gift of wonderful bouquet of irises waiting for me on the table. They sat closed for the first couple of days and then opened one by one as I was sitting at the table, finishing some sketchbook catching up and having tea - they managed to change completely between two cups and that was the very first page of my sketchbook 166 :) (Usually I draw my current tools but I think this was very appropriate thing to catch in my daily drawn documentary :)