I took a bit of a break from blogging in the summer and now am ready to jump back into it. I love summer, but this one definitely had its highs and lows.
This summer started out to be amazing with a wonderful 2 week European holiday in June for my husband and I, but August ended sadly with the passing of my mom.
Then tragedy struck again with the sudden death of a friend and work colleague with Creative Scrapbooker magazine, Christy Riopel. If you would like to donate to a beautiful cause, then click the photo below, in memory of Christy. Christy was such a special person, amazing artist and wonderful teacher, who was able to make everyone feel like they had the ability to create beautiful art.
I’m still feeling emotional after these ups and downs.
But these losses have also helped me to gain perspective in life, sort through priorities, and reflect on what is important and what isn’t.
A couple of realizations: I would like to spend more time in creative ‘play’ and I would like to travel more often to experience new vistas and cultures.
One of the best decisions I made during our European trip in June was to take along a sketch book, pens and portable watercolor set for on-the-go calligraphy and urban sketching.
Here is a peek at the progression of one of my favourite sketches I completed on our hotel balcony in Siena, Italy.
The watercolor set is a Sakura Koi 24 color Field Sketch set with water brush included. It is PERFECT for traveling, and I threw it into our backpack (well, my husband carried it ha ha) every single day. I also had a Sakura Pigma Micron pen for sketching, which fit into the pen elastic at the top of this fantastic Pentalic sketchbook, which works well for both wet and dry mediums. This particular Pentalic Aqua Journal is 5″ x 8″ which is wonderful for landscape scenes and lays flat for double page spreads. It has 48 pages of 140 lb watercolor paper and has an elastic to hold it closed. There is also an elastic pen holder attached to the top cover, which I slipped my Pigma Micron to keep it handy.
Below are the affiliate links for these travelling art and sketching essentials. You can click on the photos to shop for them on Amazon. Actually, I think they’re great for daily sketching while on the go wherever you live, not just travelling to distant places.
I highly recommend all three of these compact items for urban sketching while travelling or for hometown adventures. Next time I have a big trip, I will make even more time for sketching. I love it!
And of course I packed a few calligraphy brush pens too, which I used in my Pentalic journal and elsewhere… Here are a few examples:
Calligraphy is everywhere in Europe, even on local menus!
I stopped in a few art stores in Paris and Italy…
And the dip pens and ink displays were art in and of themselves!
Even the cobblestones were an artist’s canvas in Siena!
Seeing calligraphy in ancient texts in the Librarie Duomo in Siena was incredible!
Aside from the sketching and calligraphy, I now have so many photos to scrapbook! My next post will be about a layout I designed about Paris.
Writing this post and looking at the photos again is giving me the travel bug! Who knows where we will end up next!
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