Color Tools for Urban Sketching
Watercolor paints are probably the most traditional medium for field sketching and painting outdoors. Colored pencils are easy to use and portable. Oil painters often prefer to use pastels as they are used in a similar way to oil painting. Urban sketchers also use water soluble colored pencils, markers, oil pastels, crayons, and even colored ball point pens.
Watercolor PaintsTubes of watercolor paint are versatile for all watercolor paintings. They can be used on larger palettes in the studio, but also placed in portable travel palettes.
Cakes of watercolor paint in pans are usually found in portable travel palettes. These are convenient and made to keep brilliant colors even after drying and rewetting.
Look Down San Miguel, by Karla Beatty Sketching first with ink pens and painting watercolor over the top lets urban sketchers work quickly.
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Entrance to City Park, by Karla Beatty This was started with a basic sketch in pencil, with watercolors painted over the pencils. Fine pencil marks will "disappear" into the colors.
This is a folding watercolor field sketching palette. There are two different sized travel brushes. A small leak-proof bottle contains water for painting. You would buy this palette empty and squeeze paints into it from tubes. Put it all together in a travel kit.
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Artist's quality markers for drawing and sketching. Easily portable and can fill in wide areas of color quickly. Some, such as the Copic markers, are blendable.
This little red bag is a little sketching kit with my preferred three marker colors in warm greys.
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Bridge in Portsmouth, by Karla Beatty A quick sketch done with ink lines and Copic markers over the top. I like to use just three shades of grey markers—light, medium, and dark— to get the full range of values in a drawing
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For More Information
Read all about it! Here are links to articles with more information about watercolor painting outdoors:
Painting Outdoors With Watercolor Paints
Pack a Watercolor Travel Sketch Kit
Painting Outdoors With Watercolor Paints
Pack a Watercolor Travel Sketch Kit