Alright you lot! Before we begin, I’m so thrilled to announce the winner of my 100k giveaway, Christine
Altamirano, who’s comment was picked at random from the pool of comments and instagram
followers.
Her prize package is already on its way to her, I’m so excited for her to receive it!
She seems so thrilled, I think we’re both as excited as each other.
Thank you all so much for entering, hopefully it won’t be long till the next milestone
and another chance to share the love!
So moving on to the video, very casual format today, I just got back from New York a few
days ago.
And this is the first chance I’ve really had to stop and get my bearings since I got
back.
I thought while I’m finally getting round to unpacking it would be cool to share what
art supplies I took with me and also show you how I used them while I was out there.
I travel light, in all aspects, but especially so with supplies.
I’m always looking for ways to have things at my disposal to get the look I want, but
also not take up half my bag.
So to start out, most important thing is of course the sketchbook.
I used to have a dedicated one, fill a like 30 page sketchbook for the whole holiday,
but I’m using my sketchbook now as more of a visual diary, so all my life is kind
of documented in here amongst the doodles and whatever else.
This is a Stillman and Birn, Zeta series A5ish softcover sketchbook.
Handles wet media beautifully, no bleed through so far, lovely, sturdy white pages.
It’s been doing a great job and it held up in my bag really well.
You’ll notice there’s a ton of stuff just hanging out of it.
I used to take a glue stick with me on holiday to paste in all the little souvenirs and things
I picked up.
I don’t do that anymore, or at least I didn’t do that this time.
Instead I opted to take a stack of post-it notes.
They’re more multi-functional.
A- they’re great for covering up mistakes.
but the main use I have for them is to take notes.
To sort of plan a spread without having to commit to it there and then.
You wanna enjoy the holiday.
So, you might have a spread idea in mind thats gonna take you a good few hours, things to
stick and cute handwriting titles or whatever, and those hours of perfecting and tweaking
could be done at home or back at the hotel on a chill day in the holiday, and done much
better, if you just note down the skeleton of the idea and then go out and spend that
precious little bit of holiday time you have actually making memories.
All I’m saying is, loose bits can stay loose, but a post-it can tell me whereabouts in the
journey that fits in.
And, if there’s something I want to write about on a particular page and I don’t want
to forget it but I’m not in a position to give that writing the time it needs, quick
post-it, I can write it out back at the hotel or when I get home.
Speaking of writing, next thing is pens.
I take a pencil but I don’t really use it much anymore and we’ll come to why in a
second.
Pen, I take a waterproof fineliner so something like a copic multiliner, micron would work
as well.
Great for doing all your writing but also urban sketching, sketching in any situation,
to get confident lines down, nice ink flow, get that fluidity and energy in your work.
I also take a biro, these are like my new pencil.
Because you can use different pressures to go from the faintest of lines to deep black.
These have become a real staple for me recently.
And the best thing is you can buy them everywhere, so you’re never stuck without your thing.
Also, most of them are waterproof as well.
Those are the basics, but I do like a bit of colour in my work.
Obviously at home, for paint, I use gouache a lot.
I like the opacity, the flat colour, but to take those away with me and like set them
up, with my minimal approach, isn’t really gonna work.
So I was rummaging through my things looking for an alternative, thinking wouldn’t it
be great if I had some like paint markers or something, and I found these.
These are chalk markers, a company called Challkola sent them to me a while ago and
they're cool but I didn’t really know how I could find a use for them since they’re
more designed for non porous surfaces like glass or not paper basically.
But I tried it on paper and it worked pretty well.
I just picked out a few colours that I liked together, didn't wanna take the whole set.
And yeah, these worked well as a stand-in for paint markers.
Great way to get that bold flat colour if that’s a look you go for.
With them being chalk markers I’m not sure if I’ll need to use spray fixative to stop
the colour rubbing onto the opposite page but I probably will just to be safe.
You could also try traditional alcohol markers if you prefer more of a watery look.
In terms of watercolours, since I've started experimenting with them again especially in
my drawings of buildings, I was really keen to take some with me as well.
And I always have brought watercolours to travel journal with, you might have seen them
in my Nice travel video?
I don’t remember if I showed it but I’m pretty sure it was my cheapy, off brand watercolour
palette.
The paint tin is a bit big and an awkward shape, doesn’t fit in my pencil case.
I also did wanna step up the quality of my paints, since I am kind of rediscovering my
love of watercolour.
And as luck would have it- and I am a true believer in fate- about a week before I headed
off, Steve Padden who is the creator of the Portable Painter contacted me, asked if I’d
like to try a sample of this nifty thing.
I watched a few reviews and unboxings for it and it just looked ideal.
So it actually arrived a day before we were flying out.
One thing I will say, I was quite apprehensive with it because I’ve never filled up my
own palette before.
I’ve been looking into it.
You might remember me talking in one of my 30 ways videos about how I do struggle with
tube watercolours, and a lot of people commented saying they had the same issue and found that
a great solution was to just dry them out in half pans of whatever.
So I had looked into it, but thankfully, the little leaflet that comes with this thing
also directed me to their website where they have videos from a few creators about how
to fill pans, what colours you might want to take, the difference in cheap and expensive
ones.
Really helped, and that evening, you can see the sun going down in this footage, this was
the night before we were leaving and I still hadn’t packed yet, but I picked out a few
colours and I filled my half pans.
Had a bit of difficulty at first but kind of started to figure it out.
But yeah it’s basically, just realised I didn’t even explain it properly, its a portable
paint pallete, it folds out, the outer casing becomes two pots for your water, one for cleaning
your brush, one for wetting it.
The two pots also act as a stand so you can put this down wherever.
My favourite way to use it was actually on my lap, so with the sides holding it onto
my thigh.
You know how when you sit down and your thigh just expands, this is the one time I’m actually
grateful for that, cos it actually holds this so comfortably and sturdily, even with water
in it i felt confident it wouldnt fall.
Um theres a little paintbrush that folds out and has a finer point inside.
I know I'm going on about this a lot I just honestly think its so nifty.
I’m really grateful to Steve, who seems like such a nice guy by the way, its just
one of those clever inventions, done just right.
He also really kindly sent me an extra Portable Painter, which is one of the surprises included
in the giveaway bundle.
It’s been really hard to keep that a secret!
But that’s it.
It all fits into this pencil case that I think is actually a make-up bag, I got it as part
of a monthly beauty subscription I was signed up to at the time.
Before I go off on any more tangents, I haven’t had a proper nights sleep since I got back,
I need to finish unpacking.
I’m hoping to make a few videos related to travel journalling, this’ll be a short
maybe 3-5ish episode series.
If there are any topics you’d like me to cover, please let me know down below.
And let me know if you’d be interested in a kind of new york blog maybe!
I did a bit of filming but I don’t know if that’s something anyone would really
wanna see.
And of course I’ll see you all soon with some painting and drawing videos too!
Thanks for watching guys!
Bye!