New pocket sketchbook

The accordion sketchbook is going to be all drawings I think, so I went and got myself a new pocket sketchbook for location sketching today.



I stopped at a café on my way home to break it in. This is one of those days where my reduced fine motor control is noticeable, hence the scratchy/wavy loose quality of the lines.



Random café guests. Micron ink pens.

journal keys

I'm waiting for R to get back from Copenhagen - getting used to his absence 4 days a week is proving difficult. As always art is a good distraction though, so I've been drawing a bit more in my accordion sketchbook tonight.



I picked my keys to draw, partly because one of them is green and fits well with the green already present from my first entry. I decided to use a little white gouache as well, to make the little rabbit on my keychain pop.



I tried painting with the watrbrush, but M has been using it and it bled red into the gouache, so I fetched a glass of water and a clean brush instead.



I think the white does make the rabbit pop out of the plane of the paper, the way I wanted it to.



I'm trying to figure out how I can make use of the effect of the folding pages - there must be something extra to be had from those, other than just the possibility of pulling out the entire length of paper into a continuous frieze. Although the book-to-frieze and back again is also cool.



POP goes the rabbit!

Micron 0.1 mm ink pen, generic green coloured pencil, HB 0.5 mm mechanical pencil, and a touch of white gouache.

Accordion

I decided to go with an accordion sketchbook for my new pocket one, and it has been inaugurated with a drawing of a voter's card. Today we had elections for the town council and the regional council, and as usual I walked to the local sportshall to give my vote.

New sketchbook opening page (and tiny corner of drawing):


I sat at the dinner table with my pens and pencils, working on my drawing right on top of Maia's shiny brocade tablecloth - no marks were made on anything but my sketchbook pages!

work in progress shot:


the completed drawing in the book:


and the scan:


Ink pens and green colour pencil. I'm hoping the accordion format will inspire me to experient a bit more - we'll see how that goes.

Pocket sketchbook

I finished the last page in my small pocket sketchbook today with a lazy sketch on the sofa:



opening page:


back pocket:


You can see scans of the complete sketchbook on Flickr - there's a link in the sidbar called "Little Moley II" that goes directly to the sketchbook set.

Now I need to get a new sketchbook for my pocket, or maybe have a go at one of the small accordion Moleskines for a change. I've been chafing to draw and sketch more, but have trouble fitting it into already too full and demanding days. I miss experimenting.

Visit

My friend Anette came over for a visit. We cooked an Indian meal, made coffee, and spent an hour sketching in the living room.



I started out drawing her with her sketchbook, then got distracted by the clutter on the table. I happen to really like drawing clutter - it's fascinating how each thing sort of just grows from the last, and in the end you have an entire tabletop (or cupboard, or pile, or ...) full of stuff that all fits together. Or - if you lose focus along the way - maybe you end up with one that doesn't fit together at all, but that is just as interesting to look at.

Incidentally, this does not look like Anette at all - I almost immediately gave up on trying to catch her likeness in the face, and moved on to all the beckoning distractions of her surroundings.

Ink pen and a few touches of colour pencil, in large Moleskine sketchbook.

Morning bus

This morning I took a slightly earlier bus than my usual Tuesday morning connection and found the bus empty until halfway to work. Passengers started filing in before I completely finished this, but I kind of liked the empty bus so didn't fit any into the sketch.



This was done in my small pocket sketchbook, using a 0.3 mm Micron pen and a cheap red colour pencil. I'm beginning to like this super fine pen a lot - it has the uncompromising finality of ink, while at the same time allowing for a lot of variation in shading, a bit like pencil. Best of both worlds.

Cappuccino

Tough times at the moment. Managed to grab a short break and a cappuccino on Friday.



I only had about 20 minutes to drink my coffee and do a quick watercolour sketch. Only the full cup was mine - the other two were on the table when I arrived, making for a nice café still life. One of the waitresses turned up at my table as I was halfway, then hastily restreated as I protested her intended clearing off of my subject. Not too flustered at her brush with the crazy artist though - she complimented my sketch as she moved on to the next table.


view large

It turned out rather pale - the waterbrush is still defeating my efforts at flow-control, but then I quite honestly haven't been practising much.

detail left:

Books

The last book in the trilogy came out yesterday, and I thought I'd do a sketch in my sketchbook journal. I generally don't do preliminary sketches when drawing in ink, so when I'm less than perfectly concentrated the composition and relations of size sometimes slip, as is the case here. Maybe I'll do a proper drawing of the books another day - this one is not very satisfactory.



The illustrations on the covers are by me, so this is in a manner of speaking a sketch of a drawing by me.