I picked up a box of Platinum Carbon Black cartridges at a local art supply store yesterday. It's waterproof, so I thought it would be a good tool to have when I'm out and want to draw something to paint later.
I was holding out on trying Carbon Black because it tends to dry out from neglect in speedy fashion, and I'm a professional art supply neglecter (real title, it's on my resume). Fortunately for me, Tina Koyama's idle testing found that Platinum pen caps seal tight enough to keep even pigment-based ink wet for months. I had a spare Platinum Preppy laying around, so it's the designated Carbon Black pen now (and until the end of time, probably)!
I got lazy mixing colors, so I used a whopping ten paints (not counting white). I panic-added yellow gouache at the end because I didn't feel like the chili oil was orange enough, and I don't have yellow watercolor... Perks of only using secondhand tubes!
After experiencing some success with plein air drawing (as detailed in the tree-drawing post), I was consumed by my own hubris and set out to assemble a field painting kit. This is a well-tread road, but I wanted something small enough to stuff into a backpack or fanny pack.
I cobbled together a kit with a mint tin palette and a small tupperware container for water. These are attached directly to the book with magnets: I used a pair of small neodymium magnets for the water container and a magnetic metal clip for the palette. This setup has been working out really well, even in situations where I'm sitting on the ground or somewhere similarly uneven. It's not great for standing work, though, since the water needs to stay perpendicular to the ground.
I've been thinking about my sketchbook in terms of "how" instead of "what": I pick a medium or color palette I want to experiment with or improve at and dedicate the entire spread to that. It's helped me avoid succumbing to perfectionism-induced decision paralysis because I just think about cool stuff I want to try instead of getting stuck on making a pretty picture.