Sketchbook in a Tin

 

A friend of mine gave me a really cute tin filled with 30 cold press Hannemule watercolor postcards. (https://amzn.to/3cceRSN.) You can see the tin in the image above on the upper right corner. It's been super easy to tuck it into a sketch bag with a small pan set of watercolors or gouache, or a favorite brush pen (https://amzn.to/3mAWTOC) for monochromatic studies. The cards are 4x6" with rounded corners. I'd classify the paper as

student grade, and thinner than standard 140lb. watercolor paper. I like these cards better for ink than for watercolor, but they work okay. As you can see, the colors are quite vibrant on this bright white paper. But what I really love is the tin! 

I often do color studies for larger pieces in approximately this size, or quick composition/value location sketches, so I was attracted to the concept of a tin to hold and protect them while out hiking/traveling/painting, and maintain them as a collection. With my love of sketchbooks, I started to think of it as my sketchbook-in-a-tin. It has advantages over a bound book. If I want to use one as a reference image for a larger work, I can easily separate it from the rest. I can also order the sketches by subject, location, or media. If there are ones I really like, I can frame them. Some can be used to make notecards for special occasions. I could even bind some together for a book at a later date if I were to decide to go that route. 

Better quality paper is important to me. Some brands of high quality 4x6" watercolor postcards will not fit due to their square corners, but it just so happens that the approximately 3 1/2 x 5 1/2" size I often use for small studies fits perfectly in the tin! This allows me to not only have white watercolor paper with me, but also toned paper that I sometimes like for gouache studies, or smoother paper for my ink work. I can carry my little sketchbook-in-a-tin filled with all the brands, colors and types of paper that I love to work with. Plus, cutting or tearing the paper to this size myself actually makes this high end paper less expensive than student grade pre-cut cards; a full 22x30" sheet yields 32 cards. It's a win-win!

In case you're looking at the photo above and wondering what those little dots are on inside of the tin, they're magnets! When painting, I usually clip my paper to a board of some kind. But in this case, I discovered that I can use tiny magnets to hold the paper to the top of the lid when I paint. No extra board needed. No tape nor clips. No easel. It's so simple!

It's really easy to move the magnets around if I need to get color underneath them. When working this small, they do a good job of preventing the paper from buckling or moving as I work. These tiny magnets are pretty strong. The magnets here are from this set of 100 magnets in assorted sizes. (https://amzn.to/2ZTufhR) The ones in the image above are the smallest magnets contained in that set. I find the various sizes useful for many different art applications in assorted media.

Don't you just love it when you find something that perfectly suits a particular purpose? I'd love to find a 6x8" version of this tin, but so far anything that I've seen around that size is deeper than I'd like it to be for light travel purposes. If you happen to come across one, please drop a link in the comments! If you've enjoyed this post, and know others who would benefit from its content, please send them a link, or feel free to post a link to social media.

For more reasons to sketch on separate sheets, see my post about My Big Regret!

For tips on rewetting gouache, see this post.

Now that we're getting into the fall color zone, it's a great time to start sketching trees!

In upcoming installments, I'll show you some of the things I do with all these small studies I churn out. I've also got some new lightfastness tests coming, more sketches in my music-book-to-sketchbook conversion to share, and a bunch of new paintings. I even have an additional, new studio mascot -- a little parakeet named Palette, who I expect will be making blog contributions from time to time. How adorable is he?!! You can enter your email address on the upper right of the main page to get notifications emailed to you when a new post surfaces here. I do not share your email addresses with anyone.

Many thanks in advance to any of you who use my Amazon Affiliate links on this post, should you decide to purchase any of the products I've discussed. It helps me keep writing content for other artists, which always takes more time and effort than I think it will!