The solution is to sketch something on site - but this has to be done quickly and all art materials must be compact and highly portable. My aim is to get a set together that will fit in a backpack that I can just sling on and get going by bike, bus, boat or train. This was what the Sydney artist Tom Carment was said to have done and how he managed to so many cameos of Sydney that we all identify with and love.
Previously I had done sketching using soft pastels. The problem with that was the colours are limited - not easy to mix pastels. The dust and mess plus the need to fix the image are off-putting. The other issue was that fixative is highly flammable and therefore not allowed on planes. Watercolour was the most common media used for travelling artists and I had to bite the bullet and enrolled myself in a one day workshop on watercolour and the art of travel sketching at Art Est.
Susie Murphie is a gregarious teacher, with a love for watercolours. Her mission is to "spread the word about water colours". The key thing is to leave white (contrary to the acrylic painter, who is urged to cover every surface with paint as soon as practicable). Watercolour paper is lovely in texture and so I guess there is a need for white to be left. I took to it like a duck to water - mainly because I love gestural work - where one line can convey immense amount of information and for the rapidity of execution. I do not think that it can be the final product though - lovely as it looks. Although Susie showed some beautiful books where someone's journal was published.
The first exercise was to copy an image and to try out the watercolour. And then to paint some cumquat branches that Susie brought in.
After that we went to a street near Art Est and sketched 6 small cameos. We didn't paint on site, as the southerly had arrived by then and it was extremely windy.
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 Red front door |  Striped awning and yellow letterbox |
Trees
After lunch, we did an exercise in cropping. Travelling artists seldom have much time - the bus might go in 15 mins. One way to capture something quickly is to zoom into an interesting bit. Susie put up a row of photographs and asked us to crop and render a small part.
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