Kayaking in Monterrey Bay

I recently spent some hours on the water - kayaking in Monterey Bay. It was a day with a perfectly gray morning and temperature, and a very gentle swell. I forgot my binoculars this time (which possibly contributed to drawing more) and took my "water" sketch kit consisting of a PVC support board, stone paper sketchbook (connected to each other with a rubber band), and a plastic mechanical pencil with a chisel lead - on a string, also connected to my board. 

There were several beautiful pods of sea otters, lots of sea lions jumping out of the water (at first I thought they were dolphins), and quite a few curious harbor seals. Tons of birds: brown pelicans, oystercatchers, double-crested cormorants, pushing brandt cormorants off the rock,  and some snowy plovers up close! Oh - and seagulls, so many seagulls. 

There were several types of jellyfish - notably the Purple-striped jelly (Chrysaora Colorata) - needless to say that I kept my hands out of the water while we were nearby! 

Here are my sketches as they looked right there in Monterey:

I had more pages with some sketches so "abrupt" that I did not even take pictures of them - but ended up joyfully adding color later at home - this is how watercolor and gouache act on stone paper:

Sketching in a Kayak

I am getting ready to give a talk at the Edmonds Sketcher Fest - titled "Extreme Travel Sketching: What to Bring and How to Survive" - and I will be walking about all sorts of unusual places where I sketched - including while in a kayak!

And this week I had a wonderful opportunity to spend some time on the water - sketching from a sit-on-top kayak at the Elkhorn Slew by the Pacific Ocean. I saw so many birds! Cormorants eating close by, and pelicans of two different kinds pass very close. Harbor seals popping up right by the paddle. And a growing population of sea otters - which is such a joy to see!

Sketching on the Water - Kayaking in Monterey Bay

I had a wonderful opportunity to go kayaking in Monterey Bay and was excited to sketch while on the water - especially since the plan was to go around a small cove at a turtle-pace. The weather was gorgeous, and nothing could stop me from sketching for a good part of two hours! Except somehow either from looking for kelp crabs too intently (I found quite a few kelp isopods but very few crabs :) or from looking at the bottom of the ocean (the visibility was astonishing - I could count all the urchins on the sandy ocean floor!) but I got seasick and could not sketch as much as I hoped. 

Still - here are my two attempts - which are filled with memories for me but otherwise are a glaring example of how some sketching outings are not exactly successful on the art axes :) 

And some photos from an outing.

My tools were a trusty all-weather notebook from the Field Notes (with Yupo Synthetic paper) and one of the best black pencils I know - an extrasoft Nero pencils from Cretacolor.

Trip to Bonaire - Kayaking in Mangrove Forest

I got a captain's sit in a double kayak this time and had an apprentice to do the rowing for a while to draw. And then just stopped to do several views from the same shady spot in the middle of mangrove maze.
That PowerTank ballpoint pen from uni was amazing! (see photo of the process below). It worked on my completely wet, salty paper like a brush! I loved it so much that I even tried to take it with me scuba diving - but at 70 feet it refused to pump ink :( too bad - it would have been a great tool! But it survived the submersion and depth and my vigorous attempts to use it and still works fine on the surface.