Again on business 😙

I stop sketching for a month and I felt miserable about it. Today even the weather is not bright I took the train to the Lisbon old Aquarium just to sketch.

At the Aquarium . Some Stuffed Dolphins
I hate public transportations but train stations are nice to sketch if you don’t realy feel like going home early.
All Sketches on Stillman&Birn sketchbook, Hero fude fountainpen and Daniel Smith watercolors
And this is why I didn’t want to come home early.

#10 anos dos USKPortugal

Yes, it’s today the big meeting of Portugal urban sketchers and I’m at it. 😜👋🤓✍️✍️🎊

The all organization of the event was perfect and I was one of those who received a bag with goodies. 👏#10 anos dos USKPortugalthat’s me in yellow#10 anos dos USKPortugal

the wonderful goodies I’ve got .

my first sketch at the door of the event and the stamp of it.#10 anos dos USKPortugal

we went sketching at a beautiful village of workers at Lisbon named Villa Bertha and this is my sketching gear of the day.

After we went to a belvedere at another place of Lisbon I managed to guest some help from a tuk tuk driver who offered himself to hold my sketchbook for the photo 👏#10 anos dos USKPortugaland this sketch was baptized with drops of rain and 🍻 beer that was turned off by the wind. Well, everything can happen on the wild 😜.#10 anos dos USKPortugal

me and #10 anos dos USKPortugalNelson Paciência and Nelson Polzin #10 anos dos USKPortugal

#10 anos dos USKPortugal

My trip to South Portugal – Algarve

Those are my pomegranates from my front yard lost on the Algarve hillsthe litle church of Cachopo- Tavira at the Praia-Verde beach after a visit to a village near by. Was so hot and I needed fresh air.what better to eat on a hot, hot day. This is real Portuguese summer food and I so love it lost on the hills with my litle dog I sat and sketch the view

Reviewing Stillman & Birn square sketchbook

I finally got this sketchbook on my hands, after being sold out everywhere online. I want it so badly that I wrote to mr. Stillman on Facebook and asked him to put it back available at Amazon or eBay or anywhere else and he answered me ! He advised me a French online shop where they have some sketchbooks available. Great, a shop on the same continent as me! So now I have three of these sketchbooks to fill with daily sketches. Yay! They are Beta series, premium sketchbooks, dry and wet media, watercolor and ink , soft cover and they are square. Paper inside is high quality for watercolors (270 gsm), cold press which makes a wonderful soft texturized surface paper , I love it. The square format ( 19x19cm ; 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches) it’s a lovely compromise between an A4 and an A5 sketchbook, it allows you to compose different sketches on the same page , something I couldn’t do on a A5 format.

At Sintra on a beautiful cool day . I walked almost 2 km just to sketch that castle, only possible because was such a fresh day.

A picnic at the forest and time to sketch again

At Oeiras harbour with my new pen, Confucius fude

Why all the fuzz about sketchbooks

I started sketching on cheap plain white pages sketchbooks. At that time my sketchbooks were a mix of planners and sketchbooks , I put everything on it, stamps, addresses, phone numbers , sculpture projects, collages, reminders, you name it , I sketched with the same pen or pencil I wrote. But one day I bought a watercolor case at Venice/Italy and then visiting Toscanny , I tried to use watercolor on my sketch of the leaning tower of Piza and it was a disaster, I had to start the sketch again because the paper waved so much and was so soggy that I had to eliminate the page.

Cheap plain sketchbook, black fineliner pen and color pencil

Bic pen o n A5 cheap sketchbook

Back to Venice I bought a wire bound , 170gsm, Canson sketchbook but still I didn’t like the paper too absorbent , and too thin, it waves with the watercolors, and that wire and all those holes made the pages very easily detachables. Anyway I fulfilled it until the last page. After that I bought all available watercolor sketchbooks brands ( as you can see on my previous article on my blog) after all I need my gear work with me , not against me. That’s why all the fuzz about sketchbooks.

HB graphite pencil on a A5 cheap sketchbook (all sketches from 1994 and 1997)

By the way I’m waiting for a stillman &birn wet media, square sketchbook , these days at the mail, and I ‘m so excited about it 😜👋