Friday, December 4, 2015

Random Sketchbook Pages

I have a ton of sketchbooks.

Don't believe me? Lookit:



That's one of my studio tables. It used to be where my computer lived, but I moved my laptop downstairs and now that table is basically used as a resting place for all my books when I don't use them. Now these are just the books that are in use (or recently filled). You don't even want to know the amount of empty notebooks and sketchbooks that are still awaiting their turn.

Most of the books in those pics have a specific purpose, but there's also a couple that are basically just random sketchbooks that I will choose when I need a specific size or a specific type of paper and am doing something that will not fit the other more specific books.

The following pages are from my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook and except for being in the same book they have nothing to do with each other.

A gouache painting that makes me smile every time I see it.

Circles in watercolour just because I can.

A made up landscape in watercolour.

Blind contour drawings of hands for an online class.

Some blind contour scissors.

A page inspired by one of Lisa Congdon's classes on Creative Bug.

I'm showing you some of the less attractive pages too, because I really want to bring across that it's important to use your sketchbook and not save it for a special occasion. This is how one practices one's art after all. I like keeping most of my art in books because it makes for interesting tangible things to look through. Books feel more interactive to me than loose pages and as long as you don't treat your sketchbooks as something sacred it's perfectly fine to do whatever you want in them. The sketchbook police will not come after you if you ruin a page or (gasp) an entire book!

Hope you enjoyed this peek into one of my random books and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy weekend!