After a few weeks I was ready to believe I was back in the morning art game for real and I decided to start a new sketchbook just for that purpose. I chose this one:
It's a very plain bound paperback notebook that I got for cheap on Aliexpress. It is A5 in size and has a wonderful lightly printed grid paper. The lines on the paper consist of very tiny dots and after I draw or colour on them they almost disappear into the pattern, which is wonderful.
The paper is quite smooth so my felt tip pens write on it very comfortably and also it is just a tiny bit more absorbent than some other papers I have used, so it doesn't smudge so easily, and makes the colours a bit more intense. This does mean that it can bleed very slightly, but I solve this by skipping every other spread. It makes for a very 'calming' book somehow to have empty spreads between all the filled up ones.
I have been working in this book since October and I absolutely love it. Here are the first three spreads I did:
All the above were done in Stabilo 68 pens. Especially the one with the tiny squares filled in individually, took forever to make, even more so when you only work at them for half an hour in the morning. But this slow process is exactly why I love doing these drawings. They are a life lesson in themselves: a little bit every day goes a long way. There is no better metaphor for an artistic practice.
I hope you are doing something that brings you joy time and again, and I wish you all a wonderful and artsy day.