What am I not using in my kit? (Foundations Lesson 1)

October 7, 2020 | 11 Comments


Today I’m kicking off another Group Run-through of Foundations – yay!

As always I’m really excited to be going through the lessons again and to be hanging out with the incredible SketchingNow community that forms inside the classroom.

Lesson 1 is all about getting to know and love our materials. It’s really easy to buy lots of art supplies and never end up using them, isn’t it? 

Just because someone else loves a particular item doesn’t mean that it will work for us! We have to put in the time to get to know our materials and tools so that we can work out whether they will be a good fit for us. This is what we’ll be doing in the coming week inside the Foundations course.

The ‘seasoned sketchers’ challenge for Lesson 1 is to spend a week sketching with something from our kits that we don’t use much.

So I did a little review of my kit and found three rarely used items:

A. A fine nib fountain pen (Pilot desk pen) with De Atramentis Urban Grey ink

B. A flat brush – R4 (1/4 inch sable one stroke) by Rosemary & Co brushes

C. My watercolour pencils (Faber Castell Albrecht Durer – full collection is here)


So what do you think? Which should I use?

I would love to hear your opinion in the comments section below.


Note: It’s not too late to join the Group Run-through – find out more here.

And… if you’ve signed up for Foundations at any time you can be part of this Group Run-through for free! Simply visit the Foundations classroom for instructions on how to join.

11 Comments

  • Julie Knowles says:

    Ooh, that’s a hard question. Is like to see what you do with either the fountain pen or the Watercolor pencils. If I have to choose, is day Watercolor pencils!

    I look forward to actually working through the run-through this time, so hopefully you will see me comment lots!

  • Diane Provencal says:

    I would like you to use the flat brush. I have one and I’d like seeing you using it.

  • Ceri Donovan says:

    I like to use a fine grey fineliner instead of a pencil to map out the “bones” of a sketch, before going in with my black ink, so the fountain pen with grey ink would be my choice, I don’t use watercolour pencils as I feel it’s easier to use watercolour paint, but I do like my water soluble graphite pencil for quick tonal studies. So as it would be my last choice, I guess out of the three, the one I should really try and use is the flat brush!

  • Martine says:

    Would love to see the watercolor pencils as I have a nice set (caran d’ache, from your workshop in Amsterdam) and I would love to see more of how you use them.

  • Christiane Imhof says:

    I would like you to use the water color pencils. Its great to draw patters and to it up with water color.

  • Christiane Imhof says:

    I would like you to use the water color pencils. Its great to draw patterns and to it up with water color.

  • JennyO says:

    Watercolor pencils!

  • Barbara Gabriel says:

    I have the same pen, with the same nib and the same ink. That’s what I’ll use for this run-through, plus a couple of new Rosemary brushes I got recently.

  • Alejandro Morales says:

    I would vote for the Watercolor Pencils. I would like to see how you use them.

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