This evening I made a pencil sketch on the bus on the way to a family dinner. I had put a small set of colored pencils in my handbag and a water brush. The pencils – I’ve had them for more than 30 years, and I still try to understand what they are optimized for.

In the sofa I colored my sketch, and could do the actual mixing on the paper. It took a lot of hand movements switching between pencils, and then there was the extra step to put on water. I had no dark pen, so I mixed a dark with the pencils… a meek dark. Then a fourth step, putting in some contour lines wit a black fine liner.

When I got home I thought that perhaps the tiny tin with 6 pans is better after all. I copied part of the motif and tried. Yes much quicker to mix the colors in the tin. 3 steps!

I recently bought a water soluble graphite pencil and tried that for the sketching step. Now this was quick! When I put watercolor on I could get the contrast in at the same time. It’s a bit messier in the result: it’s possible to erase a bit while dry, but not completely as a pencil. Admittedly a water soluble ink pen would do the same job, but that is even less forgiving if a line isn’t good. Perfect lines can’t be expected if one sits in a bus or in a train.

The reason for trying this out is that I have very limited time in work-days to sketch, so I try to find the best ways to still squeeze it in. I need the materials with me for those times in-between, so It has to be light and small enough to have in my handbag. The process needs to be easy and possible to do without setup.