sketching gear

 These are the three sketchbooks I'll be travelling with on my trip to Portland. They're all small. The one on the left which I have covered with some wax print bought in the local market is 12cm X 16cm and its of kraft paper made by Paperchase. The one on the right is cloth bound and I used acrylics to dab it with the predominant colors of Mauritania it is 14cm x 14cm of a creamy white paper is trav.e.logue, hand.book by Global Art Materials. The one on the forefront was a present from a friend its pages are in sooth kraft paper and the cover is of hand made paper its 10cm X 14.5cm  and very special I'll use it very occasionally, twice in 2007 and a couple of times this year on a trip inland. No idea where it comes from.

 

And these are my tools, some have been with me for years, like the red Chinese brush and the metal tips things used for calligraphy. Others like the water-brushes I only discovered last year. My pen (which I always carry extras) is the  pilot G-TEC-C4 with a 0.4 nib or the 0.25 nib, the last one does get stuck very easily with the fine particles of dust that cover my paper here in Mauritania.

 The watercolor box, old as well.  I recharge it on my trips to Europe or get friends to bring the small pans I'm running out off. The tiny brush is a 00 da Vinci made of Kolinsky Marder, that's what I'll use if I'm sketching directly in watercolor specially if its a portrait.

And last my tiny water bottles. A pure Mauritanian product done by the Moorish women using old pill bottles. I only seem to find them inland in remote oasis. Women used them to keep their home made incense.