The Creativity kit.

Well I've heard from a wonderfully diverse group of people who hope to join us on our crawl, writers, photographers, journallers and artists all of whom will seek to capture something unique about the day.

I thought I'd write to you today about the Things one might bring with you on a sketchcrawl. As i am an artist of the visual persuasion I'll focus on those tools but I'm sure Writers and photographers have their own creativity kits which they carry with them.

Your Sketchbook
Now sketchbooks are very personal things, some of us carry the trusty Moleskine, some of us love a Black hardbound book like a Daler-rowney, others like a spiral bound book and a few of us like to make our own. Whatever takes your fancy you local art shop has a large range!
Of course if the Blank page is too intimidating then feel free to find an unloved paperback, phone book or magazine and graffiti it's pages with your impressions of the day.

Your Pen(cil)
From Sharpies to fountain pens your tool of choice is as individual as you are. need to loosen up? grab the chunkiest marker you can find or cut your pencil into a chisel for a wonderfully thick and thin contrast. (check out Asnee on flickr for wonderful examples)

For a line I like the the staedler pigment liner for it's waterproofness and the fact that it comes in an ultra thin 0.05.

Why do I need waterproof? well that brings me to...

Paints
An entirely optiononal extra is adding colour to your art, I have tins of solid paints, some created from tins collected from that tin guy at st kilda and filled with half pans of goauche and water colour, others repurposed lolly tins and toy painting kits and teamed with a pentel waterbrush make for a wonderful travel kit of colour.

Another way to add colour is with watercolour pencils or even watersoluble crayons; like caran d'ache neocolors.

Essentials
Of course there are some essentials for a day outside, sunscreen and a hat are pretty much up there with a pen and paper for a sketchcrawl. if melbourne turns out a day like last saturday it would be awful to be a lobster by 3pm.

Bottled water is also a handy thing, keep yourself hyrdated, remember you are responsible for your self, no one is going to mother you and tell you to put suncreen on and drink more water on the day, we'll all be too busy drawing!

Optionals

A sketching or camping stool (soemthing you will want to carry around all day)
Camera (unless youa re a photographer and then, well let's not pretend we have to tell you)

My advice
Carry only things you will be happy to carry all day. I'm an "everything including the kitchen sink kind of girl" but I'll put together my kit in the next few days and show you just how little I will be bringing! I spent saturday sketching at the children's farm in collingwood and I can tell you standing surrounded by people encourages you to be minimalist in your approach to tools.

best of luck!
See you all on the 25th!
janice