Acrylic Alexander: Oil Sketchbooks- The greatest thing ever invented.

Recently, I began making plein air sketching a huge part of my art life. I am often the crazy guy sitting in the corner of a Starbucks, or out on the bench painting something. People always stare, but are rarely rude. In fact, they usually just want to look at what I'm painting. After I show them, they smile, or comment on how nice it is to see an artist working outside, (and if it's not a good painting, they laugh), and then continue on their way. Because oil paints are such a wonderful medium to work in, and because I love to paint in oils outside, I was delighted to discover Cottonwood's Outdoor Plein Air Oil panel sketchbook:

These things are like artist gold. Seriously; how often do you come home from grocery shopping, try and take all the bags in with one trip (you do every time, don't lie), and end up with bruised fruit? This is how artists feel when transporting oil paint to a location- never enough hands to carry a panel to paint on as well as a painting easel and paints. With a small addition of two rubber bumpers for a chair under the cover to keep it from touching the panel on top, I had found the perfect way to transport my work.

Cottonwood is well regarded for their sketchbooks for pencil and graphite- These panels are no exception. Although they are not full canvas, but just panels designed for sketching on, they hold paint remarkably well and feel like the real deal to the brush holder. I suspect with some gesso on the back, they could be sealed to last, if you ever painted something you wanted to keep on them (again, they are a sketchbook, so longevity is often outweighed by portability as Cottonwood's primary concern).

Here are some paintings I have done in my Cottonwood Oil Sketchbook: