Experimenting with water colour medium in my new sketch book

New sketch book.

On my recent visit to "Art Station" the art stationery shop, a new sketch book caught my eye and I decided to purchase it. It has 4" X 5.5" cartridge sheets and is slightly different from my previous sketch book which I have been using all this while. It is in my nature to try out something new. It is very exciting and it brings about a change in the otherwise mundane routine.

Sketch books are fun as I get to experiment and explore while creating small little works in a short period of time. I was not much of a sketch book person earlier. It is only much later that I got inspired by this "Idea" which was being so much talked about by many other artists around the world. As of now I am addicted to scribbling, sketching and creating lot many odd works in my sketchbook. Some days when I am doing nothing I just sit back and relax, browsing through one of my old sketchbooks which stirs beautiful memories related to all the work that I created in the past.

Given below is the image of my new sketch book and a few paintings that I created. Each painting that I chose to do was with a specific purpose in mind ( As mentioned below each work ). The time spent on each of them was anything between fifteen to twenty minutes. I also write a small note underneath each of my work with respect to technique or some new lesson that I learnt while creating it. 

New Sketch book.

Trying out the painting of a Door

Experimenting with warm sky

Understanding the background ( hazy look )

The mountains and lake

Trying out some simple technique

to create a forest scene

Understanding the difference between the 

background and the foreground.

The last two study works are created using my photographs which I clicked using my mobile camera while I was at Karnala Bird Sanctuary with my family members. These small studies help me a lot in understanding the steps that I will follow in future to recreate this scene on a large paper. 

I am also posting below an image of my water colour palette which looks real messy but I manage to find all my colours in it. I clean up the bigger pockets before mixing a new colour in it. All colours in the palette are from Camlin artists water colour tubes.

Water colour palette.

A beautiful quote that I came across recently and really loved it. 

"It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds." - Paula Scher

My water colour palette collection

As artists we all have palettes for our water colour/acrylic paintings. I have a collection which I picked up on different occasions. The one below has a history. I picked up this one while I was in Fort area ( Mumbai ) and was browsing through some art stationery materials. I was not into water colour paintings then but when I saw this box palette I fell in love with it. With the intention of using it sometime in future I picked up this one for a small amount of Rs 200, about more than ten years ago.

Finally I am using it for my Camel artists water colour tubes. Its pretty messy as in the image but I manage to find the colours that I want. I made this arrangement of colours as per my convenience. The smaller wells have individual colours all spread out. In some of the bigger wells I have poured two colours simultaneously as I mix them a lot and it saves me the trouble of picking it up from two different wells. For example ultramarine blue and crimson are placed together and so are ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

This one below is my second palette which I use when I do not have much of clean space left for some unusual colours to be mixed together. So I clean up the bigger wells to create the mix that is required for the water colour painting.

The image below shows how I have mixed four different colours in the bigger empty wells so that while my painting is on I do not have to hurry up and create more colours which tends to be different in consistency and colour and ruins the painting beyond the retrieval point.

My Winsor and Newton twelve colour cake set came in a Metallic box container which opens up with its metallic cover having a little depths in it which makes it convenient to be used as a palette. As of now I am using more of Camel artists water colour tubes, so I use this set sparingly. 

This is another beautiful palette by MIJELLO that I picked up last year from ART LOUNGE.  ( Art stationery shop close to Churchgate station ). I already have a box palette, however I picked up this one to use if for my Winsor and Newton water cotman water colour tubes which I have with me since 2002. I have not used these tubes much as I got into charcoals and pastels later , BUT plan to use it now as I have realised that some of the colours are drying up. So my Mijello palette is now filled with small amounts of Winsor and Newton colours.

Mijello palette ( open )

Mijello palette ( Closed )

This last palette is different as it does not have too many big wells as separation. Yet it is kind of helpful in mixing the colours in the large single area and when I cannot find space for creating a new mix, I just wipe off the content using a clear sponge.

For my acrylic paintings I do not use any of these. I create a disposable palette myself and will post about it someday soon.