My First Real Journaling Pages

When I got the invitation to a mushroom hunt in the Shediac area (Cocagne, actually), not only was I excited because I'm crazy about wild mushrooms, I also saw it as an opportunity to create my first "real" journaling pages -- real as opposed to the assignments that I carried out last month in Montreal in the sketchbook class, and the ones that are part of Laure Ferlita's excellent online Artful Journaling class that I'm taking right now.

I didn't have any illusions about being able to sketch mushrooms in the woods: I was sure that was out of the question due to the large number of participants. But when our guide began his presentation, I realized that instead of just taking notes, I could make little sketches of the mushrooms in his slide presentation.

Here's a page from that project:

Click to enlarge.

I drew the little mushrooms in permanent ink, then filled in the colours back at the motel, using my guidebook as well as sites I found with my iPad.

Too bad I didn't plan to do this in advance. I could have allowed a bit more space for the drawings, and set each one in its own little frame maybe. Next time I will.

Click to enlarge.

I had brought back some of the enormous mushrooms that had been picked by the group, so I could paint them.

As soon as I got home, I painted this one quickly in my other sketchbook. It was just going to be a draft, but I never got around to doing it again, so I cut it out and pasted it in my Moleskine.

The camera rendered the yellow a bit too yellowy, and I shouldn't have put the red on top, dry-into-dry like this, especially since I used Brown Madder, which is sort of a shiny pigment -- but like I said it was going to be a draft, and if you don't enlarge it it doesn't look too bad.

* * * * *

I had booked the motel room for two days so I could spend the next day at the main pier in Pointe-du-Chêne, and maybe at Parlee Beach as well, filling pages and pages of my Moleskine sketchbook.

That was overly optimistic! I forgot that I had to allow time to drive back home during the daylight hours (I have night blindness), and how long sketching actually takes when you're new at the game.

I never made it to Parlee Beach, but I am thrilled at having produced this page of small sketches.

I was kind of sorry that I hadn't worked more neatly, but then I looked at the journals of some famous artists, and many of them are not neat at all.

I concluded that if you're a neat person, your journals are going to be neat, and if you're more like me, then your journals are going to be neat one day, and sloppy the next!

Anyway, I was looking at a way of unifying this page, and I checked books and websites, and one idea I found was to paint the background, like this:

Watercolour on Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook, 5" x 9". Click to enlarge.

 I like it much better with the Prussian Blue background around the sketches, and the pale yellow on the sign.

I find that this does unify the whole page, and makes the sketches stand out even more.

It also hides some of the flaws.

I'm glad I tried this because it was sort of the ultimate test for the Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. It's amazing how well this rather thin paper withstands just about any amount of water you put on it. It buckles very slightly at first, then it recovers.

At around $25, it seems expensive, but since the paint doesn't bleed through, you can use both sides of the pages -- giving you a total of 72 pages, costing a mere 35 cents each. It's cheaper than making your own, really.

* * * *

Years from now, when I look at this page, I know that I will remember that weekend so much better than if I had taken photos, including how I was so busy trying not to trip in the forest that I never spotted a single mushroom.

On the nicer side, I will remember getting excited at the colourful buoys hanging from that pyramid of lobster traps. I will remember chatting with the lady in the fake pirate ship souvenir shop with the plastic palm trees; she happens to be an "expatriate" from Montreal, like me, so we had a lot to talk about.

Best of all, I will remember watching the fishermen on the pier, and their strange pivoting movement, their bodies gyrating from left to right and right to left, again and again, in an attempt to lure the fish to bite, as I sat there on one of the benches, eating my lunch, and then sketching and painting using my new Cotman watercolour travel set, feeling awfully lucky to have found someone willing to move so little for so long!

Next time, I will try to work more neatly, draw some lines and stay inside them, and leave more space between the sketches! Fortunately, I had drawn in a frame for the title of the Shediac page. I added the lettering when I got home -- I wanted the title to be done with care, and if you see the influence of Cathy Johnson there, it's no coincidence -- I just got her new book, Artist's Journal Workshop: Creating Your Life in Words and Pictures, and have found it a great resource for a beginner like myself.

Review of Winsor & Newton Cotman Field Plus Set

Click to enlarge.

This is the Cotman Field Plus Watercolor Set that I ordered for sketching and journaling.

Curry's had it for $40 plus shipping, which was about the same as if I had ordered it from the US.

The problem with ordering from the US is that unless the supplier ships by the US Post Office you're likely to find a delivery guy at your door demanding some outrageous brokerage fee if you want your merchandise.

I had ordered this particular model after checking out everything that was available out there -- in m price range, that is.  I liked all the features, including some that other sets just don't offer:

Click to enlarge.

    ◆    Three separate mixing trays;
    ◆    A small water bottle that fits into its own little space when put away, and can hang from the palette when you're working if you wish (as in the right, on my photo). The bottle holds 1/3 of a cup, enough to fill one of those little cups six times;
    ◆    Two water cups that clip right onto the palette, with four slots to choose from;
    ◆    Thumb rings on both sides (the one on the right is for lefties);
    ◆    A good selection of pigments in half-pans;
    ◆    A small synthetic brush and two different slots for it;
    ◆    A compact design. When closed, the kit measures 5-1/2"x4-1/2"x1-1/2" (14x11x4 cm) and weighs 8.6 oz  (243 g).

Those were the Pros. Now for the Cons.

1. The kit I got had two major flaws: (a) it didn't close properly, so that if you turned it upside-down, everything would fall out; and (b) the bottle leaked.

It turned out that Winsor & Newton had received a defective batch from the manufacturer, and a replacement shipment is on the way. W&N promised to replace my box as soon as the new ones are available. (They offered me the option of receiving another model instead, but it didn't suit me.) In the meantime, they have sent me a replacement bottle, which doesn't leak.

2. Remember, this is a Cotman set. Cotman is Winsor & Newton's "student" line. So that the pigments are not "artist quality", but they're good enough for now, as I learn to sketch on location. When I'm ready to switch to artist quality, the half-pans are the same size, so I can just switch the pigments that matter. Or do what many artists do, just squeeze some tube colour into the empty pans.

Click to enlarge.

One pigment that doesn't work is the Cobalt Hue -- it just looks like a weak Ultramarine, as you can see on this sampler that I made. The idea of having two blues is to have a cold one and a warm one, and so I replaced the Cobalt with Prussian Blue from the Artists line (top, right).

I doubt that I will ever use the Chinese White. Should I want a white paint, I would use gouache, or maybe one of those gel pens which I have yet to try. I'm tempted to just fill that slot with another green pigment.
 
Winsor & Newton were very nice about the whole thing, though they took forever to answer my email. I had to ask Curry's to give them a little push.

I haven't had good luck with Winsor & Newton products lately: a couple of months ago I purchased several tubes of their watercolours and received a mail-in coupon for a free sable brush. The brush -- a No. 3 round from their Artists Water Colour Sable line -- arrived very nicely packaged in a large tube, but unfortunately it was defective. It's very thin, and the point is double and it ends in a curve. It's unusable. I suspect that's how they get rid of their "seconds". I hope I'm wrong, as that would not be worthy of that famous name.

WHERE TO BUY YOUR W&N FIELD PLUS SET

Amazonhas a terrific price on it -- I wish I had looked there first! Check them out!