Hello & howdy.
Here’s what I’ve been up to in the sketchbooks above in January and February. I have 2 pages left in the brown Stillman & Birn soft-cover. Started in 2021. I keep meaning to do a silent video flip of it and other sketchbooks and put them on the Youtube, but so far that hasn’t happened. The tripod is out and leaning against a wall for inspiration that has yet to strike.
I enjoy sketchbook tours from artists. I like the experience of seeing the pages as a unified whole.
I went back to some old pages, like these from last year to add some neon paint here and there.
Another page from last year that had a lot of black space below Wyatt, so I painted in Otto.
I got some new colored pencils and swatched them on these old pages from 2021. I hated these squirrels for a long time, but now I sort of like them and might try painting some more animals with flat color and drawing their features over the top. Or maybe not.
On the page below, 2021 Zoom on the right. Squirrel palette on the left from 2022. Sometimes things aren’t in chronological order.
I recently found an old sketchbook in the bookcases from 2016. It’s one of my handmade books. As I was flipping through it I realized there were some blank pages, so I took it off the shelf and put it on the table in my art room. I’ve been scribbling in it when I have sketchbook time, which hasn’t been as often as I’d like.
I say “scribbling” because I tend to work rather impulsively. People are one of my favorite things to draw & paint. I find screenshots I’ve taken from video chats with friends or Youtubes I happen to be watching. Mostly I draw people from photos unless I happen to be in their company then it’s fun to draw from life.
The sketchbook below is my large paperback with thin, staple-bound pages. It’s an inexpensive Clairefontaine Croc Book.
Everything is practice. Random pages filled with whatever catches my eye.
If I’m watching a video that has a person in it I usually start drawing. I don’t like this toned Strathmore sketchbook because it doesn’t lay flat, but I will still use every page.
In other news, the sun has made days that are almost warm. A round silver moon appeared in the kitchen window tonight. The cherry & magnolia trees are beginning to blossom at the Huntington and Descanso. Parrots fly over Moss Cottage each evening. I can hear them approaching when they’re a minute out. Last week I saw a dozen geese flying low over the Broadway Bridge into Chinatown. I could have rolled down the window and touched them, or so it seemed. Lunar New Year came and went. The days grow longer. Clouds, snow on the mountains. And so on and so forth.
