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What I Packed for a Trip (An Interesting New Brush)

For a vacation to a warm sea, I packed two separate drawing bags: one for an underwater sketching kit (I will make a separate post about it and link it here) and a surface sketching kit. This is a quick overview of what went into my surface sketching kit. Not pictured here are my water container, little water spraying bottle, towel, and a backup watercolor set, which I basically did not unpack. I made separate photos of what I thought I would actually use and what not, and got it pretty accurately. A new brush is a R24 Eradicator which I borrowed from Suhita Shirodkar for testing and ended up taking with me - it is a brush that is supposed to "lift out brights or soften hard edges in your watercolor painting" - basically for lifting. But because it holds very little water, it was an interesting tool to use with gouache, as water control is one of the things that is especially tricky when using a dry palette. Basically, it allows me to get more pigment because I can scrub on the dry well very well with it, and the only water I use in this case is some spraying of the palette. Having several pads of paper to take on location was very useful. Though now I need to combine this all into my main sketchbook :)

All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:

1. What I Packed for a Trip (An Interesting New Brush)

2. What I Packed For A Trip (Underwater Sketching Kit)

3. Trip to Bonaire: Plants
4. Trip to Bonaire: Underwater Sketching - Turtle City

5. Trip to Bonaire: Almost Domestic Animals

6. Trip to Bonaire: Sketching and Scuba Diving - Oil Pastels and Salt Water Mix Nicely

7. Trip to Bonaire: Sketching and Scuba Diving - Remainder Sketches and a SURPRISE

8. Trip to Bonaire: Sketchbook Video (Flip Through) and Additional Sketches - from the "On the Spot" Article

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 :)

Seattle 2025: Part 5 - Touristy Things in Seattle

Sometimes, taking a ferry and spending a day in the forest and on the beach during a tide-out is a way to vacation. And sometimes doing touristy things is a way to go.

Under the Seattle Needle, there is a wonderful museum and garden filled with the glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly. I enjoyed the vases more than the abstract compositions. Reflections created by black postaments and dramatic lighting were cool :) Looking at the tools and learning a bit about the glass and additions that make colors was interesting. Garden is always fun (this is my third Chihuly exhibit - I saw one in San Francisco and one in Botanical Gardens in New York quite a few years ago). The best part was watching a demo! (and sketching it:)

A visit to Pike's Market, a walk through the underground part of downtown Seattle (aboveground too), and a quick visit to the zoo - before a run to the airport. Seattle is definitely a city on my list to visit again (and soon!)

Seattle 2025: Sketcher Fest Edmonds - Part 3: The experience (in sketches and IDEAS for the next time)

I just posted an attempt to summarize my experience at Edmonds Sketcher Fest in words and photos.

And these are my sketches made during all the little and big things that happened during the weekend.

I wish I had sketched more! Next time I will:

- do a portrait party with all who could be persuaded;

- find a way to attend more artist talks (can we have a volunteer man the table from time to time during the sketchbook fair?)

- Find a company to draw sunrises and not only sunsets.

- bring some stickers to share (I got a collection from other artists!)

- petition for a "private viewing" hour before the sketchbook fair opens up to go and flip through sketchbooks of other artists;

- ask people all the questions I was shy to ask :)

Seattle 2025: Sketcher Fest Edmonds - Part 3: The experience (in words and photos)

As I look back at my experience of being part of the International Festival of Travel Sketchbooks (Edmonds Sketcher Fest), I think that what made it super special was the many opportunities for connecting to people in so many different forms.

I lead a wonderful group of 15 people on a workshop, but also:

- had a chance to present an art talk (more below);

- I attended a couple of art talks by other guest artists between all the other activities;

- spent a whole day at the sketchbook fair sharing with attendees my actual sketchbooks, tools, and process, answering questions, and collecting interesting insights;

- participated in a dinner event where people had a chance to share both meal and conversation with guest artists and with many guests of the Sketcher Fest;

- went on numerous outings to draw a sunset, or morning swimmers in a fog, or to grab an ice cream, lunch, dinner, nightcap - all while sketching, looking through sketchbooks of other people, and talking about all sorts of things, life- and sketching related.

Here are some photos from the sketchbook fair and other outings - on them you will find all the guest artists though I have to admit some were present only in the form of their elbow or sign - I will try to make better photos next time! :) A list of all the artists and information about them can be found here:
https://sketcherfest.com/sketchbook-fair/sketchbook-fair/ I salute and thank every one of you - and I am very grateful for an opportunity to meet, connect and sketch side-by-side!

Image above is how my table at the sketchbook fair looked like.

My art talk was on a subject that is one of my favorite topics: extreme sketching. I gathered examples from my experience in all sorts of situations. From kayaking to skiing, from riding a horse to taking care of humans ages 0 to 96, and of course, sketching while scuba diving! My talk covered both what to bring with you on an adventure like that and how to survive it. And I enjoyed answering many questions and receiving lots of great advice as to where to go scuba diving next!

Thank you Laurie Wigham for making this wonderful sketch of me giving an art talk! (photo above).

Lastly, this was a chance to meet many new people, make great friends, and also connect in real life with many online sketching friends whom I've known for years now! This connection to the community was such a luminous gift!

It would be impossible for me to list all the encounters and thank all the people that I was so happy to connect with - so I will just say a huge THANK YOU to the organizers of Sketcher Fest and all the volunteers, and Gabi Campanario in particular for support throughout the preparation and during the event. Here is to sketching together more!

Maldives: Sky and Ocean.

I saw Maldives from the plane and I saw Maldives from the boat. It looked wonderful but I am sure very different from looking at it from the shore :)

All my time in the Maldives was spent aboard a scuba diving vessel where everything was organized around diving activities. It was a very spacious Soleil 2 filled with people who share interest in underwater adventures. We had three to four dives a day, a comprehensive briefing before each dive and in between we were sleeping and eating. When I was able to spare time and energy from these important activities I tried to squeeze a sketch or two - but all I saw was sky and water :)

The colors were amazing, constantly changing, and frustratingly hard to translate onto paper - which means that I kept trying :) Drawing on separate sheets proved to be a mistake as wind would immediately claim any sheet of paper that was not attached to a heavy object. Humidity was better than I expected so everything was drying really fast. I used my watercolor and gouache kit and my small pocket gouache palette.

Two Days in Singapore

On the way to the Maldives, we spent two very packed days in Singapore. It was expectedly hot and humid, fantastically green and colorful, intriguingly tasty and simultaneously different and familiar!

Before the trip I made a list of places I wanted to see and mostly covered them though it meant over 25 miles of walking, many cab rides (left side but AC!) and lots of subway travel! It would be impossible to list all the things that I wanted to sketch or tell you about! And all the foods we tried! It was a lot and there are many reasons to go back :)

We had a great guide - a sketching friend Andrew Tan - an urban sketcher, comic book artist, illustrator, youtuber and skillshare teacher - known as @drewscape_art on Instagram. Thank you, Andrew, for an AMAZING tour and a great time sketching together!

Here are some highlights from my sketchbook:

Gathering Materials for Sketching While Traveling

My recent travels took me to Asia for the first time in my life. I knew that I would be drawing both on land and water, including underwater. I felt a need to take with me all the colors of the world in all the mediums available to me. It was hard to not spin from all the possible expectations and I spent quite some time trying different combinations in my sketchbook :)

Blue Color Pencils below:
Names and manufacturers (FC = Faber Castell, LU - Luminance, LYR = Lyra; Supra - supra color by carandache; PC = Prismacolor, H = Holbein, Mit = Mitsubishi).

I refilled and packed my watercolor+gouache palette and then could not stop myseld and added a travel palette with gouache colors.

I got myself various papers and drawing materials to draw underwater too - including oil pastels, colored pencils, wax crayons, and regular pencils - you can see them in the post about what is on my table at the beginning of December.

I totally packed too much. But a full story requires a separate post about the trip!

Travel Sketching: Pocket Printmaking Kit

This is the last post with sketches from my October trip to the East Coast, and here I collected sketches that I made with my pocket printmaking set of tools - plus a large acrylic marker for a quick spot of color (for details see a post about choosing tools for this trip).

I like how this worked with the limited palette and strong contrast - both things that I would like to develop further.

This is a series of posts about Fall 2024 trip to East Coast.

1. Airport Sketching

2. Choosing sketching tools

3. Leaf Drawing Party

4. Catching Some Color / Fall feelings

5. Printmaking on the go.

Travel Sketching: Catching Some Fall Feelings!

I've re-arranged my sketches from this trip several times - thinking about how to share them, and I think this batch is a series of sketches that will tell you one thing only: I love color, and these all are mad attempts to show you how happy it made me to be in the middle of so much of it on this trip!

These sketches are direct gouache with some underpainting done with a large acrylic marker, texture added with the distress crayons, and some lines added in pen or pencil. Details on the tools that I took with me are in a separate post - see below.

This is a series of posts about Fall 2024 trip to East Coast.

1. Airport Sketching

2. Choosing sketching tools

3. Leaf Drawing Party

4. Catching Some Color / Fall feelings

5. Printmaking on the go.

Travel Sketching: Two Approaches and Which To Choose.

The East Coast trip this fall took us from Massachusetts to New York through the Hudson Valley to upstate where we spent some time in the Finger Lakes region and then drove to Vermont, almost to New Hampshire, and back to Boston via Mohawk Trail. Some days the weather was perfectly picturesque autumnal and some days it was typical autumnal (read - we had some sunshine, lots of clouds and it rained quite a bit). My portable sketching worked out great.

Here are two different approaches:

For the first two images in this post, I was able to put down a bunch of lines (ballpoint pen in the first sketch and calligraphy zig pen in the second). And when I found out that I had some time I added color. I used my mini gouache kit, a bit of markers, and colored pencils.

And here is a second approach: putting down some large color shapes with quick-drying acrylic markers and then with gouache over them. Adding lines later. I used a ballpoint pen in the first sketch and pencil lines in the second sketch.

I do not have a strong preference between these two approaches (line or color shape first). Overthinking usually leads to not making a sketch at all for me so I value speed and intuition in on-location sketching quite a bit.

This is a series of posts about Fall 2024 trip to East Coast.

1. Airport Sketching

2. Choosing sketching tools

3. Leaf Drawing Party

4. Catching Some Color / Fall feelings

5. Printmaking on the go.