Writing that post was very liberating for me and I feel now as if I have made things a lot clearer for myself as to how I want to proceed. I have been thinking some more about it this weekend and I think what is important to me is making stuff and sharing stuff, more than marketing stuff, selling stuff or making a big name for myself (or any name at all).
For now I have decided not to open an Etsy shop, because I simply don't want the hassle that comes with it. I have instead decided to use this blog as my main forum for showing my work and for sharing information (tutorials for instance) and even giving some of my work away (freebies you can print out or original pieces you can win). I have to think about it some more, but I am far more interested in spreading my work to those who like it than I am in selling it and this may be the way to go about it. We'll see how it goes. For now I have some freebies lined up for coming friday and I will spend a lot of time this week working on a tutorial on art journaling. I'll keep you posted. In any case I'm excited about my work again!
High time for some actual images!
I wanted to show you some pages from two sketchbooks, my outside-of-the-studio-book and my watercolor sketchbook that's usually in my backpack for when I'm away from home.
I love the size of my out-of-the-studio-book! It's 25x25 cm (I have a preference for square books for some reason). Unfortanetely that also means it won't fit on my scanner, so pictures from it are far from ideal. But you get the general idea, right?
In the above spread I was testing out some derwent graphitint pencils. They are beautifully colored graphite pencils that are also watersoluble. I bought a small set of six of them and wanted to see how they worked, so I filled two pages with them. I liked the colors a lot, but in all honesty, as for performance I'm not sure how they are different from regular watercolor pencils, so I don't think I'll invest in any more of them.
The next spread is me just playing around a little. These are the kinds of things that happen when I'm watching tv and want to do something creative at the same time.
On the left some doodling with a drawing pen on a random watercolor painted background and on the right a heart drawing in watercolor pencils that were wetted afterwards. Now I cannot do this kind of thing if I really want to concentrate on what I'm watching on tv, but it's perfect for reruns of Law & Order! ;-)
As you know I have also started zentangling, oh no, tangling (sigh). I made four zentangles on one page and drew them on different colored backgrounds.
I like the effect of the different colors. I am still very much in the learning stage of this as you can see, but it is a fun way to doodle. Now I have done these four I am working on a large one that will fill an entire sketchbook page. I will show you that when it's done.
On to the watercolor sketchbook. This one is a lot smaller. Pages measure about 21x15 cm, which is A5 size. It's a very portable book. I'm not all too happy with the paper. It's very workable for watercolor, but it has a little too much structure in it for my taste. Still, it's perfect for taking along on walks or if I travel to the main land and want to doodle on the road.
First an example of what I like to do when I don't know what to draw. I just draw shapes and color them in. It's abstract, but without any meaning or plan. Just playing with materials, in this case watercolor pencils.
I have these really cheap watercolor pencils that work quite well actually. I've had some more expensive ones that wouldn't react to water as well as these cheap ones. I don't know the brand, it's not on the pencils, and I threw away the box, but what I'm trying to say is that more expensive isn't necessarily always the better choice.
Of course no sketchbook is complete without some little houses in it. In this scan you can see how the paper effects the result and I'm not too happy about that. But oh well, it's only a sketchbook.
The sentiment here is that there's no place like home, ain't that the truth? Speaking of little houses, I have recently received one of those moleskine japanese books with the harmonica pages and I intend to fill it with little houses. That should be cool.
Finally a little pen and watercolor sketch I did last saturday on one of my walks. The island is at its most idyllic right now (also at it's most busy, tourists everywhere, can't wait for summer vacations to be over) and even on a rather gray day like saturday the heather brought an overload of purple to the view of a small valley and I just couldn't resist putting it on paper.
It's a very quick sketch, but I was going for impression, not perfection. The air was rather moist and it took forever for the page to dry. It was fun drawing on a walk again though, I really should do it more often.
Hope you liked this peek in my sketchbooks and hope you will have a nice and artsy week!