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van le's avatar

By chance i saw your post about “ my art suppliers”. They are so informative and it will come in handy for my workshop in Europe in Sept . As a beginner and clueless sketcher, i had a tendency to bring too many not helpful supplies or not enough correct supplies . 😏❤️

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PR Apurva's avatar

This is so true. I have this want to go to the local zoo and draw. But, I always mess up mostly because I want to take too many supplies with me. This one day - this January - I had stuffed my pockets full with pencils, and wanted to 'not leave' so many others - that I ended up cancelling the trip.

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Yup, turns out less is more, at least for me. If one has too much choice it’s easy to get overwhelmed and end up not drawing at all, especially since the environment is already new.

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

It’s so easy to take too few or too many supplies. (Or supplies that you don’t usually use and then think that you will suddenly use when on a trip.) So figuring out what sort of supplies work for you for on the go is just golden. Hope you manage to get the perfect kit together for your trip.

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Emily Hoadley's avatar

This is a great little kit! I carry a small tin that has a tiny watercolor palette, a few tiny pencils, a brush I cut the handle off, and a tiny water container. I also carry a small sketchbook.

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

That kit sounds perfect! I sometimes add a small watercolour palette, but can’t use it inside museums or concert halls, so I end up leaving it at home and relying on the water soluble pencils.

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RAJ KAUR's avatar

This is a genius little mini kit! I also LOVE the bag you made!

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Thank you! If you are into sewing - I used the Le Sac Banane pattern from Atelier Brunette. It’s such a useful little bag.

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RAJ KAUR's avatar

well, i’m in to the idea of sewing, but i’m ‘all the gear and no idea’ kind of person 😅🤣

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Melissa Martin's avatar

I love a small sketching kit! Mine would include 6 Inktense pencils (ink black, poppy red, teal, iris blue, sun yellow and willow), waterbrush, and small sketchbook

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

That sounds perfect. I’m a bit on the fence about also taking my ink black - I haven’t used it enough for it to be one of the short pencils yet. Will have to work on that.

And I’m unfamiliar with the Willow colour, mmm, now I’m curious about that one…

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Melissa Martin's avatar

Willow is a nice medium brown. I like to use it for drawing skin instead of using black. Oh, and I also bring a short Black Polychromos pencil to use for most of my linework, because it won't be activated by water when I wet the Inktense!

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Yes, the black polychromos is very similar to the pitt oil base.

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Kristine Neeley's avatar

I’ve been saving this for months to come back to for packing for our trip to Scotland next week! Mine won’t be quite so mini, but even just being choosy about selecting a few colors will help so much! Thank you!

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Hope you are enjoying your Scotland trip at the moment and that you got to do some happy sketches. Glad that the video could help with the packing!

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Eva dick's avatar

Thank you very helpful I find it hard to limit my pallets🌸

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Thank you! Yes, figuring out and putting together a limited palette can be really hard, but I find that it gets easier every time I do it.

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PR Apurva's avatar

Thanks, that's a really nice video. I don't work much with water color pencils when I am outside, but I do keep a soluble graphite with me. And along with that, a charcoal stick and a white pencil. The white really helps.

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Soluble graphite is so useful! Do you use the pencil or pan version?

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PR Apurva's avatar

Pencils work so beautifully with water brushes. That said, graphite pans are news to me. Feels like painting with graphite. How's your experience with pans? If you have a drawing you can share, I'd love to observe the work.

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

I used to use the water-soluble graphite pencils a lot when I started sketching again years ago, but recently I tend to enjoy using colour too much and haven’t used them in ages. I have a tin of Art Graf, but I am still undecided on whether I enjoy using it in my work - I think it is because I struggle to gage how dark the graphite is I have on my brush and tend to go to dark too fast.

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Jess Stride's avatar

What a great little kit! I love your colour mixes, very inspiring Thankyou!

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Thank you, Jess! The kit and colour mixes serves me so well, that I find myself sketching much more - less is often more, right?!

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Natasha Cross's avatar

This video was lovely thank you! It has inspired me to put a little kit of my own together for sketching while I'm out and about. I really like your bag too

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Nino van Vuuren's avatar

Thank you, Natasha! What are you thinking of putting in your little kit?

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Natasha Cross's avatar

I admired how light you packed! I like to take my watercolours and drawing ink out, so I always end up with a lot of stuff. I might experiment with choosing three pencils of different tones to focus on though 👌

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