As Lapin once said to me, every sketchbook needs an old car and a dinosaur. Well, in that Fabriano sketchbook I had the old car, but I wasn’t sure if I would get a dinosaur in there (I did go to South Kensington at the end of the book, spoiler alert, but I drew in the V&A rather than the NHM, so no dinosaurs but I did draw a suit of armour). However, I have these Lego dinosaurs skeletons, so I thought I’d draw the T-Rex. I was messing about with the sketchbook and wanted to lay down some gouache, and draw over it with white gel pen to see the effect. Yea, it looks nice enough. It was not as easy to draw as I thought, the pen needed a bit of work, I was scratching away at it. It might have looked nice in white acrylic paint with a very thin brush, but it would also have taken me ages, and I was just trying something out. Upshot, I probably won’t be using this technique for any on-location sketches. But I have a dinosaur in that book now.
Day: July 12, 2023
current bag
Slight break from posting London sketches, here is a drawing of my shoulder bag. Getting the right shoulder bag is essential, it needs to fit my 8″x5″ sketchbook, pencil case, paints, sunglasses, my iPad mini, and have room maybe for a drink and another mini sketchbook. This one fits all that easily. It still feels a little big sometimes but it has enough small pockets without being overloaded with them. I also love the colours. I’m really into yellow and grey, or yellow and black, especially a warm yellow like this one has. It’s Timbuk2, which means it just folds over and doesn’t have a zip (I do prefer a zip) but it’s lined well so it keeps things dry. The strap is very comfortable too. Trusted companion.

