Travel Sketching: Airports

I spent a week traveling on the East Coast of the USA, and to get there and back, a hefty dose of air travel was needed - which means people sketching! And some attempts at drawing from the window of a plane that moves at over 550 miles per hour. Not too many details were visible! But what views!!

Zig Calligraphy pen and uniball vision fine (gray body) in a cotton midori notebook. 

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.

Sketching While Waiting

Last couple of weeks I had a bunch of scheduled and unscheduled appointments. So here is a fresh installment of little notes and sketches done while waiting. Famous California rains made it into many of these, even washing one of my watercolor sketches off completely (see below). There is an update on nonagenarian (some routine tests and eye shots), fixing the tire and then fixing it again, waiting with the rain and waiting for the rain. All of these are done on either scrap paper/envelopes or my pocket Strathmore drawing pad with uniball vision rollerball pen (gray body) which works even when the paper is soaked! 

Drawing while walking, drawing in the rain

I had a wonderful time hiking through a forest on a Sunday morning recently. It was rainy and foggy, some colors were saturated and others were muted. A great company of friends meant a conversation accompanied by raindrops on my hood. I was a little too wet and cold to draw first but then got out my little pocket drawing pad and used a waterproof uniball to make some quick sketches-while-walking: a twisty madrone, fallen three meant I drew people climbing over it, a turn in the road. The sketches are hard to recognize by others but they are my little memory about a day well spent!

Winter Europe Trip: Sketching Tools

Below is a sketch report of everything sketching-related that I took with me on my trip to Spain over the holidays. I did use almost everything once but there was a very short list of tools that I used regularly. Mostly because on-location sketching was often super speedy (I was following a guide with my group), there were quite a few train rides and I worked a lot from the photo references and notes later. Having options felt good though. For example, I took only basic pens on my summer trip (UniBall and Ballpoint) and this time around I enjoyed having calligraphy pen at my disposal (one of them decided to stop working after a flight but that is why I had two :) Having a limited palette of markers and pencils in my "daily" selection of tools forced me to improvise and simplified some decisions. And chisel nib was super handy for doing fast coverage and details with the same pen. 

More from the trip (winter 2023-24, Spain)

1. Sketching Tools that came with me on this trip.
2. Public Transportation is amazing (sketching people).
3. Sketching landscapes from a moving train.
4. Cordoba Part 1
5. Cordoba Part 2
6. Seville
7. Granada
8. Madrid
9. Toledo
10. Museums
11. Organizing my notes for these posts after the trip :)

Sketching while waiting

Little things that happen everyday - waiting here or there, sometimes outside, sometimes inside, sometimes with people, sometimes without. These little glimpses into my everyday life took just a few minutes but I enjoy looking back at them. All of these were drawn with uniball pen vision (gray barrell) on a 4x6 strathmore drawing pad - by current pocket setup that is always with me. 

Travel Sketching: a quest for the right amount of tools

I was excited about the East Coast trip and potential fall colors and started thinking about how to approach the selection of the tools way before it was time to pack. There are different approaches I've employed before - no restriction (lol!), limiting my tools to one kind of material. Or limit by weight. Or think about what colors would prevail in potential sketching situations and see if I can crystalize a collection of tools around that. Only the last idea seemed reasonable but I did not want to jinx my fall color chances (and the predictability of the colorful season on the East Coast is very iffy). 

So - my first attempts are below - they were created based on the "what if I was just going to paint outside today" kind of thinking. Needless to say, they were way more than I would have used on this trip, way more than it was reasonable to carry with me across the country and in potential sketching situations!

The left one had more pens and bigger selection of brushes and more markers too. The middle one one had mostly water brushes but a lot of color pencils and gouaches of all sorts (from my palette to a jar of white to some tubes). Both were well over 1 lbs... Then I put together a lovely little selection of pencils (rightmost image) and thought that I might just stick to this - but very quickly it grew into another more-than-a-pound bag!

So - I decided to make some rules and then do my best to stick to them.

1. My general rule is that no matter what I should take with me my favorite materials - they change from time to time but I do not remember ever traveling without a pentel pocket brush with black ink a uniball pen (gray body) and a ballpoint. Between these and a finger/smudging, I can cover all the basics :) 

2. My next rule is to bring at least some version of material that is exciting me most at this particular moment. In this case, it was my acrylic markers - I picked two colors.

3. I knew that I would need some tape and glue and pencil sharpener. And a paper towel. And various sketchbooks (I took three with me - one main one to collect everything at the end of the day, one pocket and one with the lovely smooth paper that it joy to work on (thank you N. for this gift!) - see photo below. 

4. Next - I decided that I would think about when I might have a chance to draw and come up with a set that should cover both indoor and outdoor options but with the idea that I should be able to complete a sketch from the "I think I have a chance to sketch" thought to the moment when I am closing the book and running after my companions in under 5 min with the idea that it can be 2. So it would have to be something small, workable while standing and in the rain, and easy to pull out of my pocket. With that in mind, I made several options (and quickly tested them on the page below). But with options to expand if I pull everything out for a luxurious chance to spend an evening and use everything.  Altogether this meant that each tool should be able to do multiple jobs (hence some color pencils are watercolor pencils and some are not for example. And simultaneously they should be different enough to be able to cover a wide range of colors, textures, and values. But with the 5 min for a sketch limitation.

As you can see, I decided that jinxing or not but I am bringing my yellow with me :) 

Here is what I ended up with. You can click on the image to see the names of the pencils (there is a close-up below too). And my watercolor+gouache palette is something I will have to go back and research more - it was pulled together at the last minute when I suddenly found my art tool palette I thought I lost it a few months ago!). 

One of the large acrylic markers contains my own custom-mixed light blue color. And the second one has pigment info printed on it - cad yellow deep hue. I took 10 pencils (one has 2 colors :) And two crayons that deserve a separate post about them - this is a new tool for me and it is a tricky one but really interesting! Zig calligraphy markers to allow me to travel without my pilot parallel pens (I did miss them but Zigs were enough in this case). 

And I used all of these! Some more than others but this was a relatively small kit that served me well! And I came up with some cool combinations and sequences for using these tools together. 

Current main sketchbook (number 157) is 8x10 gamma from Stillman&Birn - covered in all sorts of stickers :) Large white one is a midori notebook cotton - takes some wash but mainly such a joy to write and draw in and somehow very liberating! And the top one is royal talens art creations in the smallest size. Fits in my pocket and deserved a medal for surviving all sorts of weather on this trip!

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.

My interview for the "Artists' Journal Workshop" Book by Cathy Johnson

 Interview # 14--Meet Nina Khashchina!

Hi all!  This interview's been derailed a couple of times...both Nina and I have been busy, and she traveled in between there!  Believe me, it was worth waiting for...

Let's jump right in and let Nina speak for herself!

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I started drawing very early and had a lot of support from my parents - until I stopped. I also kept a diary of sorts since I was a little child - but never consistently. There was a period in my life when I did not draw at all, I became a graphic designer and got completely computerized. Drawings were on little post-it notes, napkins, separate pieces of paper. And then the whole hand-made painting and drawing thing came back and I discovered a pleasure of keeping it all in one place - my sketch book.

Since summer 2005 I filled 57 journals - large and small, some I made myself (my favorite kind of
journal). Some I love for the paper, some for the cover. Some journals were filled in one breath, others took a long time, some became my friends as we went through life together, others I conquered with time :)

Another of Nina's wonderful sketches of her little boy in the park...

I draw in the park while my son unwinds after a day in preschool, while taking a breather when hiking, when chewing my lunch, while cooling down after the jog, in doctor's office, waiting in long line, waking up before everyone else does - the perfect time is right now :)


I seldom have time to finish things to the perfection or even correct mistakes but I enjoy the process – mistakes and all. This way I see time, I feel alive, feel the changes and notice beauty everywhere.
Drawing things helps me understand, slow down and see what's important for me and make choices. I think about sketching as a way of life. Way to travel. Way to think. Way to explain.

The purple ink makes a wonderful, colorful vibration in many of Nina's sketches.

It would be impossible for me to choose one medium as my favorite, mostly because they change a lot. Anything works if I NEED to draw, but I often have cravings for certain things to try. Just like with food - you can stop the hunger with ... WHATEVER but some food combinations work better with each other and a little variety always is an adventure ;) Right now I am a lot into a purple ball point pen and a diluted ink in Niji waterbrush plus some dip pen experiments.

Little watercolor set and brush pen are always in my backpack :)

I just came back from the Roatan island in Honduras. This trip came when I was in the middle of a power struggle with a sketchbook I liked at first sight and hated later. Store purchased 8.5 x 11 soft cover spiral bound book with some glossy paper. Surface very much like illustration board – smooth and slick. Pens and Markers were fine.

Paper was refusing color pencil after just two layers of application.
And working in watercolor was very frustrating since there was no chance for color to flow – only paint with brushstrokes and color was changing dramatically between the moment of application and when dry.

My first thought was to take different sketchbook but after some consideration I took this situation as a sign to try different things and it worked out great! 

 First – I decided to take more supplies with me than I usually do (the good thing is I can share it with my son – so it does not look like I took THAT much:)

Here are examples of what I usually take:

This time, I took a nice large palette of watercolors with a couple of real brushes, a tiny set with gouache with 2 waterbrushes, about 20 color and watercolor pencils and 10 Pitt color brush pens, plus my regular pens (purple ballpoint, Pentel Brush Pen, UniBall Vision Micro pen and Niji waterbrush filled with the diluted black ink). Plus tiny spray bottle, scotch tape and an old film container. This all fitted within a small first aid bag :) In retrospect I think I could have done without pencils and markers – but my son used them a lot – so I think this was the right choice!

Second thing I did to conquer this sketchbook was to take some small cold press 100 lb watercolor sheets, place them in an envelope on the back of the book and try to incorporate them whenever I could. This allowed me to work on several pages at once (humidity is very high on Roatan so there was a lot of waiting) and gave me a break when I wanted to enjoy real watercolor washes.

Third thing was that I had a little Moleskine Cahier book with me almost at all times – I was drawing at any opportune moment – while waiting for dinner, waiting for boat to load, sandcastle to be finished… This provided me with sketching time without interrupting activities of other company members. And every night I was tearing filled pages and posting them in my main book with some comments if needed. This way my tiny book was almost always empty and I was free to take it with me even when I knew it might get wet: I’d put one pen, gray waterbrush and my book in zip-lock bag and be ready for anything :)

Many of my pages are scanned and can be found here:

One of the projects I am working on continuously is a Badger Log.

Both the idea and inspiration came from my wonderful family and they support this log from the very first thought till today’s drawings.

Badger Log is about my interactions with a little badger I know, who happens to be related to me - how he is looking at the world and how I look at things because of him. I keep it as a sort-of a diary but only a few drawings so far made it to the scanner – so I am thinking about collecting a whole bunch together and making this log more public - how - I'll tell you later! :)

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Nina, thanks much for this wonderful, useful interview!  Can't wait to see more of the badger's adventures--and yours!
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It seems I never posted this interview here - and now found this topic in an old "to do" list - so here you go - better late than never ;)