No (Pocari) Sweat

Two small water bottles shown with my Lamy Nexx pen.

In my ongoing quest to lighten the bulk and weight of my bag, I found that the single heaviest object was my filled water bottle. The primary benefit of using a waterbrush with watercolors is that no additional water source is needed, so I don’t carry a water bottle for painting purposes. I carry one for a more conventional purpose: to wet my whistle.

 

For the past year I’ve been carrying the smallest I’ve found, which I got from a Japanese vending machine (while in the U.S. we super-size everything, the Japanese survive on their tiny island country by mini-sizing everything). Its 100-milliliter (about 3.4 ounces) capacity is sufficiently small, but it’s still bulkier than I’d like. (It is good as a conversation starter, though: Pocari Sweat?) (Shown on the left in the photo.)

 

Recently I was in the travel section of my neighborhood Bartell Drugs and found a 3-ounce, TSA-approved bottle in my choice of several colors (at right in the photo). Much slimmer than the Pocari Sweat bottle, it still holds enough to get me through an hour or two of sketching.