Molly Hashimoto's Watercolor Travel Journal Demo
Molly Hashimoto
was at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH recently for one of our FREE “How To” weekend demos. She was demonstrating her very popular Watercolor Travel Journal tips and techniques to a packed room, and a VERY interested audience.Â
Molly began keeping Travel Journals in 1998, and told us that: “The time spent drawing in your Journal while looking at your subject is more meaningful than just taking photos – you slow down time this way”. At the second demo Molly told us that making the Journals helps her to enjoy and extend the experience of her trip because of taking the time to sketch on site and working on finishing later in the studio “…stops time just a little bit…the experience is not over.” I would like to add that Molly’s blog is also a fascinating Internet “Travel Sketchbook and Journal” of what she is working on, thoughts on painting, her classes and workshops and more, really worth taking some time to read, look at and enjoy!
Arches Watercolor Book in the 10 x 14 size is Molly’s favorite for her Travel Journals because she can sit with it open on her lap. She really enjoys seeing her watercolor journals lined up in a row, about 20 now, giving her a nice sense of accomplishment. Keeping a “Travel” Journal is not just about painting them when traveling to major travel or vacation destinations, they are wonderful to have for a hike, a visit to a park or garden, or whatever subject that you would like to keep in a Journal. Molly has written a couple of articles for past DANIEL SMITH catalogs: “Garden Journal Watercolor with Masking Fluid and Italic Calligraphy” and “The Art of Watercolor Journals” that you may want to read for inspiration.
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Molly’s traveling paint kits:
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The simplest is just a ziplock bag with her basic essentials:
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Water soluble pen.
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Waterbrush like the Niji Waterbrushes.
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2 small bottles of water (one for clean and one for dirty) but if you carry several filled waterbrushes then you don’t need these
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Small watercolor brush such as a small travel watercolor brush.
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Winsor & Newton Watercolor Pocket Plus Travel set, although Molly finds it does not work for her with larger sketches, since she can’t do washes not enough surface area from the mini palette in the travel set.
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Molly also has two other travel paint kits she uses. One is similar to the W&N in size but you can fill with your own preferred paint choices. Fill with your watercolors;  Empty Half Pans or Empty Full Pans and super glue them into an Altoids tin, again very little area for mixing colors on the “palette”, just the lid of the Altoids tin.
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For more paint choices Molly filled her DS Empty Watercolor Boxes with her watercolor paints. The watercolor boxes have a folding out area, plus the sectioned lid for more areas to mix paint in too and for washes.
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Molly also sometimes likes to use Derwent Inktense Pencils, though you do need to have a fixative to keep it from rubbing off on the opposite page. These water-soluble pencils are very nice for detailed sketches of small things like flowers, but Molly doesn’t like to use them for landscapes too hard to cover larger areas with the color.
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Walnut ink is also a favorite medium of Molly’s’ for doing travel sketches, and is particularly great if you like Old Masters drawings. Walnut ink is water-soluble so you can dissolve your line with a brush. You can use a Speedball pen & nibs to draw with, and make dilutions of Walnut ink. Tip, don’t use Crow Quill nib since it catches on the paper and spatters. Molly showed us a sketchbook from a trip to New York City in February and her sketches of Central Park (almost empty so it seemed like being in a wilderness) done with Walnut ink. Using Walnut ink also be used with a waterbrush, you can fill them with different watered down strengths of the ink. I think the Pigma Sepia Pen Set would be especially nice when working with Walnut ink, you could sketch out the subject, then go back in with some diluted Walnut ink in a waterbrush.
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Molly usually starts her journals on location and takes photos to use as reference to complete what she has started. Not all traveling/hiking companions want to wait around very long while Molly sketches, depends on the group. Sometimes Molly will work on her journal later that evening in her hotel room and look at the camera screen of the photo she took. Sometimes Molly will work on a journal months later in the studio, a great way to re-experience the trip.
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Some miscellaneous things Molly mentioned in her two demos:
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- “Niji waterbrush really helps to loosen up your work. To clean squeeze it and wipe with a paper towel.”
- “I like to carry several waterbrushes.”
- “Best way to start is to come up with a way to do these [sketches] very quickly.”
- Sometimes uses Drafting tape to control her edges, it just depends on the effect Molly wants.
- Molly really likes preserving the white spaces (around the sketch) and negative spaces.
- “Not a studio painting [the sketches] it does not have to be representational.”
- “So many different ways to paint – no right or wrong.”
- Molly does rip out sketches that she does not like
- Molly likes to let things dry when she paints outdoors, and then goes back in and works some more.
- “Tip – use a really fine point pen so that the notes in the journal don’t over power the sketch.”Â
- Molly likes really beautiful letter forms in her journals, although doesn’t do it so much any more because it is time consuming.
- Watercolor by itself does not work with calligraphy [for the letter forms] Â - not enough “body”, so Molly mixes the WC with white gouache, the “paints” the mix onto her calligraphy nib.
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For the demos, Molly worked on adding some sketches to her journal she had started from her Taos visit. She worked from photos of some adobe buildings.
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For the demo, Molly used:
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3/4 inch bight brush – Molly also has a “good selection of flat brushes, makes it easier to paint windows, doors etc.” and DANIEL SMITH Watercolors:
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Molly began painting the adobe building and painted in the shadow areas on red adobe with a favorite mix; Quinacridone Burnt Orange, Phthalo Blue (RS) and Carbazole Violet. Molly noted while she painted that the “nice thing about working wet into wet is the loose, soft quality.” She then went back in, and removed the excess shadow paint. After the sketch of building had dried, Molly then wet in the sky area with a brush to drop in the blue Phthalo Blue (RS) for the sky working around the clouds. Molly then painted in the gray (Quin Burnt Orange, Carbozle Violet, Phhtalo Blue (RS) for the undersides of the cloud. She then tilted the sketchbook, then went back in and blotted with a paper towel to soften the clouds edges – Also nice for transitioning some areas. For the sky, Molly used Cobalt Teal Blue and Cobalt Turquoise.
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Molly also said that while she has sketchbooks of her trip to Taos, Europe, Yellowstone, and Central Park in New York City etc. that you don’t have to go to faraway places to make wonderful travel sketchbooks. Most of Molly’s’ sketchbooks are of local destinations, and painting at your local park, botanical gardens etc are excellent ways to learn and practice so that someday when you do have the opportunity to take a sketchbook on a dream trip, you will have had lots of practice, and know well which art supplies to pack for sketching!
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After the demos everyone crowded around to look at Molly’s sketchbooks (a few had been passed around during the course of the demo) to look through the pages, they were really fun and inspiring to look through! Thank you Molly!
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Every Day,  Express Yourself with ART….
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~Deborah Burns
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~Deborah Burns
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