tools

Here's number 10* in Red Parka Diaries' drawing challenge: draw your favourite drawing tools and pay homage to them. Because let’s face, they are awesome and we’d be lost without them.

From right to left - because I can ;) - my Japanese brush pen, through JetPens, along with carbon ink cartridges that are permanent and waterproof (I used it to draw the bike in Amsterdam)! I love that pen! Especially because it's cherry red and because it takes courage to put it to the page, so it keeps me on my toes :) Next to it, one of my Big Girl brushes, and one of my Koi waterbrushes (that I - let's be honest here - use a lot more often than my Big Girl brushes these days...). Dr. Ph. Martin's India Ink - I use black the most, but I have a gorgeous colour wheel of them and they are all waterproof! My go-to dip pen with sketch nib. And of course, my watercolour set - a Van Gogh box filled with Winsor & Newton. Mostly artist grade, but there is some cotman left - I'm slowly replacing empty pans :)

At the bottom of the page, my less adventurous but definitely trusty tools. The ones I grab most often really. The tools that take the least amount of courage to pick up - and let's face it, not every day is a day of Great Courage or experimentation. There's my orange mechanical pencil, filled with B leds, my eraser (or what's left of it), and one of my Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners :)

I suppose this is what my drawing could have looked like if I'd kept it simple. Because these are the tools I use most often, and without these, I'd be lost. But I love all the stuff I use. And most of all, I love that it's there to use! That I can grab whatever my mood guides me to and draw! That all of these things are always out on the dining room table - my dudio - making me happy and excited even when I'm not drawing, but merely walking past, or dusting around them! 

I loved drawing my art supplies :) I love looking at art supplies! But of course, most of all, it's about using my art supplies. That's the best homage you can pay them! But it was fun putting them in the spotlight like this, and I think they appreciate it too.

In case you're wondering, I'm still working on my morning coffee. In the first version, I misspelled twice, and in the second version I used colours that are - not quite it, to be very mild & gentle ;) Version three is in the works. It might be up next. But you never know what happens when these tools and my mind start on a trip all their own ;)


* you can have a look at this challenge's number 2, number 9 & number 1 if you want :)