Post overseas travel and we are finally getting back to our routines. This week we have made it back to our regular Wednesday cafe. To hang onto that holiday magic just a bit longer I decided to use the Derwent Panoramic book which I won in the final raffle at the Urban Sketchers International Symposium in Singapore. The paper format is 420x 180 mms and weighs in at 165 GSM. This paper is designed for pencil and light watercolour wash.

I wanted to use the extended panorama format to bring a more interesting compositional approach to this very familiar subject. I had in mind the workshop I did on Day 1 with Inma Serrano and Miguel Herranz where we were working on capturing a complex scenes in a series of images on the one page.

At Biginelli’s along with the dinosaur, watercolour and watersoluble graphite, 19 August 2015

I knew I was pushing the paper’s limits with the amount of water I added to the paper, but it seems to have held up quite well to the watercolour, although there was buckling. The elastic strap on the book has helped tame the ‘buckle’ factor. I also intend using this book for pen and ink and brush pen sketches and plan to take it along to some of the other events we attend such as Drawn In and Dr Sketchy where I feel the large format will enable me to make a montage of images. We will see.

PS I’m not sure what the current availability of this book is. I have seen it on offer at various websites, but I couldn’t find it on Derwent’s home page product list. If you want to try this format you might need to get one sooner rather than later.