After my Weather 101 workshop in June, and then enjoying Bethan Burton’s “Skyscapitos” class at the Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference, I’ve been tackling lots of little sky- and cloud-scapes in my journal. In fact we’ve started a semi-regular “Skyscapito Appreciation Society” for sharing our work and enlisting help with challenging skies (first meeting on Zoom July 16 at 4 pm Pacific / Arizona time).

But one of the challenges was how to cope with the speed with which you need to move to get nice sky washes and keeping your skies wet when dropping in darker colors . . . If I just drew a box, then I’d invariably slash outside the lines or go too slowly to try to get inside the lines and the washes would dry before I completed them, making blotchy skies.

So I started trying a studio trick: masking out my area with painter’s tape. It works like a charm! It creates a frame that you can splash up to and onto, and then when your are done, it peels off leaving lovely perfect edges.

I only had regular half-inch masking tape, and I found those rolls to be too big for my field kit (I’m all about keeping it minimal and light!). I found this .27” small rolls of tape on Amazon and they are perfect for field sketching. Small enough you don’t even know it’s in your bag, but super versatile and useful not just for skyscapitos but also marking out discreet scenes such as the hummingbird nectaring on a cholla blossom below.