My new travel sketch book for Pencil and Charcoal sketchings

When I am travelling, I make it a point to carry my ART TRAVEL KIT which includes a small sketch book and bare minimum art materials which can help me create few study sketches or paintings. Last year I created this small water colour "Travel sketch book" as shown below which has small hand made papers bound together.

You can read more about this sketch book in my earlier POST wherein I have written in detail about it. When I am away from home I prefer not to carry my pastels as it is a very messy affair. Later some day I may organise my stuff and start on that too.

Travel sketch book with 40 hand made sheets

size 3.5" X 5"

For my August trip to Madikeri and Goa, I decided to create yet another sketch book for my charcoal and pencil works. For charcoal and pencil works I just need to carry a few of my favourite pencils, kneaded putty and eraser. These materials easily fit into a pencil box and very convenient to carry in case on wants to do PLEIN AIR painting.

To create my charcoal TRAVEL SKETCH BOOK, I made use of Canson c a grain paper which has slight texture on one side. I cut them into uniform size of 4" X 5" and got it spirally bound at a stationery shop. However since charcoal and pencil sketches smudge easily, I have used butter paper ( glassine ) between the sheets so as to preserve the work for longer duration.

Travel sketch book for creating

charcoal and pencil sketches

A.  Canson c a grain paper

B. Butter paper

While I am away from home, I am unable to do a large sized art work. Therefore these travel sketch books with small sized papers, enable me to explore and experiment. At times I am relaxed and I have the time to create a small study work on location but there are moments when I want to but due to various factors am unable to create my work outdoors. Hence I make it a point to capture the magical moments on camera so that I can refer to them and use either water colour or my pencils to create small study works.

The biggest advantage of carrying these small sketch books is that I get to do so many different subjects and each of them takes not more than twenty to twenty five minutes. Moreover the work is done in a very loose and free manner, in a fun way so there is no hesitation at any point. I will soon be posting a few small works created in this book.

My travel kit for water colour painting.

If I were to be travelling and away from home for a few days, then I would probably carry the following as shown in image below. I created my small sketch book specially for carrying it around as it is very convenient to carry. It is a different issue that I have already started using it while at home as I am loving my experience of creating mini water colour paintings.

The Image above shows the following

My open box palette with all the essential colours poured in it from the tube

Closed box palette

My water colour sketch book

Few water colour round brushes

( As of now I have been using round brushes by Camel and Arora )

All the three things as mentioned above are light weight and very convenient to store as well. Given an oppurtunity one can easily paint a few water colour sketches while away from home. I definitely plan to do that some day.