SketchPockets Are Here At Last!

The SketchPocket

My friends and readers, you’ll know I have been obsessing over this little sketching bag for the last year and a half. My little bag, the SketchPocket, without which I never leave the house. I often return without a sketch, but I never feel I missed my chance. I never know when life will offer a quiet half hour to get creative with pens and watercolours, so I always have it with me.

What can I tell you about a SketchPocket?

It’s made of cactus leather on the outside, canvas on the inside.

It is designed to look smart with any outfit. The leather is smooth and has a slight sheen, and can be easily wiped clean. The bag is padded to keep your art materials safe and is lined in canvas with a design of my favorite tubes of green paint, on a deep forest green background. (You might recognise one of the tubes as being Green Apatite Genuine!) The zip pulls are embossed with my signature. Available in black or off-white with matching shoulder strap, and with strong elastic strips and fabric pockets inside, the SketchPocket is designed to make a sketch in ink and watercolour without having to sit down or spread out.  

How the bag came about…

As you might be aware, I’ve been sketching on location all over the world since 2012. When I first fell in love with sketching on the spot in ink & watercolour while on a sort of sabbatical in Mauritius, I would bring a huge amount of kit with me. When I think about those first expeditions around Mauritius, hauling a stool and an orange plastic folding chair, a ceramic palette (which fell and snapped in half one day) and a huge pad of paper as well as all the other bits and pieces…I have to smile. It got smaller over the years, but no matter what sketching bag I used, I was always faced with the same problem: I could not sketch and then add watercolour while standing up, and would always need to sit to reach my water. Bags that did allow that were heavy, or utilitarian in appearance, and I like my bags to look cute. So I sewed one of my own following a pattern online, but it was unsatisfactory in many respects and I couldn’t use it. Too small, pockets facing the wrong way, no way to use it hands-free…I realised I would have to start from scratch.

After at least ten versions of the bag’s design and an art studio that looked like there’d been an explosion in a pillow factory, I realised I needed help. Through a combination of sleuthing, determination and some lucky chance meetings, I built a team of the right people. I found a pattern designer through some enquiries I had made to a Dublin-based textile factory. Around the same time, a student of mine on a workshop in Galway last year had worked with an industrial designer with lots of experience in bag design. The industrial designer knew a factory manager with lots of experience in manufaturing designer bags. This was all luck, and I am so grateful to the people who have helped me bring this bag into existence.

With the help of these skilled and talented people whom I met along the way, some input from my global sketching community and yet more alterations to the design, I finally came up with a bag that is perfect for my needs as a sketcher. In my search for a leather alternative, I came across many plant-based alternatives, but my favourite by far was cactus leather for its appearance and performance (it’s made from the nopal cactus in Mexico – also known as prickly pear or opuntia – which needs no watering or fertilising). The factory manager was very used to working with all kinds of leather, and in fact preferred it, so it was no trouble to him.

When the first cactus leather sample arrived, the “leather” was nice but not what I had in mind. So I had more cactus leather sent to the factory. The leather in the next one was perfect, but needed tweaking…and the sample after that was just right. In October 2024, I gave the green light.

Nowadays I never leave the house without my SketchPocket. It has my phone and wallet in the front pocket, my bank or travel cards in the back, and then when I am ready to sketch I just sling it over my shoulder, unzip it, whip out the sketchbook, use the magnetic clips to keep the pages down and start drawing. When I am ready to paint, I attach the paint box to the magnetic clips, and I use a water brush to paint. I have a sketch completed in no time, with zero mess. In a café, on the beach, on a train, out on a hike or sitting at home, I am sketching more than ever. I can capture every beautiful sight I come across, meaning I am slowing down while still getting through everything that needs to be done. I’m using my black one at the moment, but I look forward to using the off-white one with summer outfits in a warmer climate next year.

Everything you need to make art anywhere

The bag is available filled or empty. I’ve put together a carefully curated selection of sketching tools that mean you can achieve truly beautiful results. To find its way into a SketchPocket, only the very best sketching equipment will make the grade, and I have chosen some really beautiful art materials, the same ones I use every time I open my sketchbook. 

In a filled SketchPocket you will find:

1. Sailor 55º Fude de Mannen fountain pen, with its bent stainless steel nib for expressive lines. The most reliable fude pens around.
2. A Sailor converter to fill the pen with ink of your choice
3. Two glass vials: one with a sample of De Atramentis Document Ink in Brown, and the other empty, for spare ink or water for your water brushes. Document Ink by De Atramentis is waterproof and will always flow smoothly, and brown is a beautiful soft colour that suits lots of subjects.
4. A set of top artists’ quality watercolours by Roman Szmal Aquarius: 12 colours in half-pan (plus one extra colour) curated by me for every eventuality whether urban or rural, formed in nature or contemporary. Colours are: Lemon Yellow 204, Aquarius Orange 354, Cherry Quinacridone Red 329, Ultramarine Intense 254, Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) 103, Payne’s Grey 243, Phthalo Green (Blue Shade) 104, Sap Green 233, Aquarius Green 346, Gold Ochre 109, Italian Burnt Sienna 120, Cyprus Burnt Umber 128 – PLUS bonus colour Quinacridone Magenta 332. The metal box means you can attach the box to your magnetic clips and they won’t fall off easily.
5. Two small water brushes by Sakura, in a Medium and Broad tip: these are small but reliable plastic brushes with a reservoir in the handle for water that always flow well
6. Hahenemühle sketchbook in 100% cotton, 250g, in size A6: smooth and heavy, it is the most beautiful paper Róisín has worked on, and it will bring out the best in both your ink lines and your watercolours.
7. Hahnemühle collapsible silicone water container, with lid – very handy when you have a little more time and a surface to put all your tools on
8. White Gelly Roll gel pen by Sakura in size 10 nib – reliable flow and very opaque
9. Two magnetic stainless steel square clips that you can use to hold your pages down, and then attach your paintbox if you are standing up or in a small space

Even if you choose your SketchPocket ready to fill with your own favourite supplies, you still get the following in your bag, because they are so useful:

1. Two glass vials for ink or water
2. Two magnetic clips 

The SketchPocket comes in a gorgeous dust bag to keep it in perfect condition. It arrives in a box that lends itself to easy wrapping if you’re giving a gift to someone special.

Note: the front pocket is a bit wider than it looks in the photos, to fit nearly every size of phone.

How much is a SketchPocket?

Until 31st December 2024, the bag costs €295 filled, €195 unfilled. This is an introductory offer. Here is a link to the purchase page: https://roisincure.com/product/sketchpocket-black/

And shipping?

Worldwide shipping is included, tracked with An Post, and a courier can be arranged at an agreed fee.

Size – what can a SketchPocket fit?

• Inside, there are 5 slots + pockets for pens and 4 slots for water brushes.
• There are two pockets on the bottom (when in use), one for a box of 12 half-pans and one for an A6 sketchbook.
• Behind the elastics and pockets for pens and brushes is a pocket for an A5 or A6 sketchbook.
• On the outside of the bag at the back is a flat pocket with space for a flat item (such as your collapsible water container) and two credit-card sized slots, which will remain secure against your body.
• On the outside in the front is a separate zipped pocket that fits a phone and a pair of sunglasses (but not in their case)
• While the bag is primarily intended for use with an A6 sketchbook, it also fits an A5 200g Watercolour Sketchbook by Hahnemühle. However, if you put BOTH an A5 and an A6, and all your pens and brushes, it’s going to be a very tight squeeze. I recommend bringing one sketchbook only when you head out, OR bringing loose sheets in both sizes.

Returns

You can return your purchase within 14 days of receipt, but we cannot cover return postage, unfortunately. All packaging must be returned and the bag must be in an unused condition with labels attached, the art products unopened and unused and any paper material included. 

The bags will be shipped out the day after they arrive at the end of November, and it usually takes about 2 weeks to arrive in the US or Australia. However, delays do occur and we have had shipping times of up to 5 weeks for these places, albeit very rarely. We can’t guarantee the arrival date, but we will do our utmost to get your bag to you as fast as possible. All items are sent with their tracking number sent to the customer by email, so we can follow it up and make a claim if necessary. 

We can arrange to have the parcel sent by the registered post service from An Post: this comes with insurance and a guaranteed delivery time. Price to be determined.