Life's a Stitch

Seeking more compact, portable means of ceative expression is an ongoing goal. Gone are the days when I travelled with a suitcase dedicated to one 21 colour fair isle project, AKA Alice Starmore’s Marina. A close runner up is when we walked 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago and I insisted on carrying 13 ounces of watercolour supplies. C questioned my wisdom, telling me I’d be way too  tired  at then end of consecutive 22k days. He was correct. When travelling I still pack along a “purse knitting project,” usually something that reauires a skein of sock or laceweight yarn. I confess I don’t use it to knit socks, not my favourite kind of project, it goes toward a scarf or baby item.

During a recent trip to Hawaii, I crossed into the realm of coloured pencils. A beginner course at our local art society left me hungry for more. What a perfect medium for travelling, requiring nothing more than pencils, paper, an eraser and a sharpener. Blogless Marsha’s Dave and I continued our travelling tradition of online art classes. Of course my artistic load remained heavy as I was unable to leave the waterolours  behind. 

Here are my efforts, the same landscape, two ways. Interesting that the smaller, coloured pencil work takes at least twice the time of the panting,  considering  the capacity to lay down colour – a tiny  pencil  point vs a brush.

Here’s one I’ve yet to finish. A wild chicken of Kauai, roosting in a bare Plumeria tree.

Note: although the Prismacolor tin is modelling in my photo, I generally use oil based Faber Castel Polychromos pencils. Or Dick Blick or Lyra. Anything but those dreaded, prone to “lead” breakage Prismacolors. And this time I found rotted wood in the set, another count against them. Problem is, there are times when a wax based pencil comes in handy, so I admit to keeping a set around. And their tins are so pretty.