A couple years back, at Xmas, my wife gifted me a VERY large set of coloured pencils – like 120 pencils!
The pencils are lovely, smooth, no bits on the paper etc., the kind of thing you expect in expensive pencils. The only issue is what happens when I want to do some plein aire sketching? I either have to take a few pencils or my smaller set or lug around the full box (yes it is in a lovely wooden case!). I almost feel guilty seeing my lovely pencils sitting on the shelf in my office.
This morning I was weeding through my scraps, bibs and bobs of denim looking for a project to get me the heck away from my computer screen (almost 50 hours of eyeballing last week!). There at the bottom of the stack was a pair of old work jeans that I had yet to cannibalize. And when I mean old, I mean old! I am not terribly hard on clothes, even when working in the yard or building something. These jeans were circa 1990 – literally old jeans before Sam was born! Other than some major rips in the knees they were in pretty good shape – should I patch them for yardwork or pitch them out as we head towards our next adventure (more on that in the months to come!)?
So as I mulled for a moment while the Keurig brewed another Pacific Bold, I had a brainwave. Maybe I could make an art carrier big enough for my lovely set of pencils?
Presto, an art carrier was born. And yup, it fits my 120 pencils, wooden box and all! Plus my large sketchbook and just about anything else I would need. Yaay!
You will note in the picture the pencil carrier in the right hand side pocket. That is another mini project – using old upholstery samples to create small bags. Will do a post when I have more to show.
For now, maybe an indoor sketching day is in order, what with the fresh foot of !@#$%$#@! snow in the backyard.
Cheers!
Mark