Trip to the Welsh coast

Last week, the team and I head to the Welsh coast for a quick break (mainly to see the sea as we had all been missing it). We love that part of the world, so much history, so many delightful beaches and so inspirational.

As you can imagine I always take some sketching gear or my watercolour equipment with me on these trips. My wonderful wife bought me a box easel for my birthday a few years ago and it is the perfect thing for this sort of trip. I store all of the gear in there, it has a delightful little drawer to keep my paper in, so that I can just pop the feet out and I am ready to go.

Just in case you were interested, the paper that I am using is Millford from the company St Cuthbert’s Mill. It is a hard sized paper which means that the colour sits up on the surface of the paper more. I love it as I find I can get nice and crisp edges to my washes. I bought a Millford block this time around rather than loose sheets. It is the perfect size to pop into the drawer of my box easel. The paper is pre-stretched and secured around the edges so there is no preparation, you just set up the block on the easel at the height that you want and away you go. I am a big fan of the St Cuthbert’s Mill blocks as, unlike a fair number of other watercolour blocks that I’ve used, they stay all nicely glued together no matter how much watercolour (or Welsh rain) gets applied to the paper.