I am quite fond of the (roughly) 6x9 lime green 40 page Fabriano sketchbook F2tE purchased for me as a 2021 birthday gift; besides liking the cover colour & appreciating the acid free paper, it's slim & the soft cover makes jamming it into assorted bags easier.

However.

While it's a very nice sketchbook it's not and was never designed to handle watercolour,^[1] or at least, the watery (wet-on-wet type) methods I generally prefer, which traditionally are painted on more absorbent, and, in my case, usually rougher (cold press) paper; but on this day, it's the paper I had, and the subtle effects of mostly white bits pleased me.

As I often do, I took reference photos while working, and one of the reasons I'm fond of this quick sketch, despite both the paper (& my own) deficiencies, it that it's one of those rare cases in which I felt the painting more effectively conveys what I saw in the mind's eye:

The above was before I started the sketch...below, after:

So the painting took place between 7:30 and 8pm, with a fair amount of futzing around to make certain I didn't send the paints flying, which has indeed happened on several occasions. Really, I should come up with a better system. I expect I was using my usual pentel water brush, though I have a water bottle both to augment its output and clean the brush between changing colours.

I took some photos of this lighthouse the same previous day, and was happy with those too, but feel this sketch captures more accurately my perception of the subtle whites on the main part of the structure, which happens almost never.^[2]

So I s'pose that's another reason to like the sketch.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.

Sylvus Tarn