I’m not a good blogger these days, so sorry. Too many other things seem to get in the way. Travel, family illness, and over the last few months I’ve been asked to act as a social media promoter for an organisation Southern Art Trail. This annual trail has 93 venues open from Sep 15 – 30. I will have my work exhibited in three of the venues so I have been rather busy.
Some of my Plein air paintings I will have on display in one local gallery can be seen here.
Another gallery has a variety of different paintings and sketches.
In addition to those two I will be exhibiting along with my Plein air buddies, all small watercolours painted in and around our town. I will post the link to that page when I have the pictures ready.
Apart from that, I just had to make myself a new sketch bag. I had one that worked really well and fitted in a bunch of stuff, but it was not meant to last and finally fell to pieces. I used the idea to fashion a similar one, not as big so I’m not tempted to pack too much. The idea is to keep it light and simple.
The sewing on the bag is not too fancy, but it works.
It fits an A4 watercolour pad, and another smaller one if I need it. A plastic basket fits nicely inside keeping my palettes flat so the paint doesn’t run everywhere. Yes, I’ve had some awful messes to deal with from palettes not being carried flat.
The little easel is fashioned from a camera tripod and fits into its own carry bag.
A see through zip bag contains miscellaneous pens, clips, knife, a kneadable eraser and sharpener fit into a small plastic disposable glove container, a towelling wrist band and a strip of towel for blotting brushes.
The brush container is made from a cardboard roll, covered in duct tape with a string attached to hang from the easel. Water container, watercolour pencils, watercolour palette and gouache palette make up the rest of the kit.
Now I just need to put it all into practise. I did have a trial run, catching up with sketches in my moleskine travel journal, clipping the book to the easel with the small black clip thingies.
I do hope to get back to regular sketching after this busy period is over. I miss just sketching for fun, and not have to worry whether my work is “Gallery worthy”.
Ros Jenke 
Love your brush holder.
Thanks Mary. Another gadget 😂
Always glad to get a post from you. Went to the galleries you listed. Your work is excellent. Hope you have good luck with sales.
Another clever bag–part of the fun of painting. Certainly is complete. I am always looking for a new bag and have tried so many but never found the perfect one. I agree that your brush-holder is great. A toweling wrist band is new to me. Wish I could join you.
Judy I painted alone for years and found great support from online communities. I started with All Media Art Events each weekend on Wetcanvas which at least got me into regular painting with virtual friends. After that I did an online course with Liz Steele which made me join up with Flickr and onto Facebook which I had resisted for years. There are so many different groups you can interact with there….. and you can keep your profile private.
Good ideas. I do belong to wet canvas. But–I hope you read my comment as a new bag-not blog. I follow Shari Blaukauf and you and also Marc Taro Holmes–all perfect to me. But not my art bag. Thanks.
Life always gets in the way of blogging for me too. I couldn’t post a thing for 6 months because of a newborn baby coming along. But it’s all about sharing what you love at the end of the day 🙂
Thanks for writing and congrats on your new baby. That would keep you very busy.