Everyday – Jamie's Sketchbook

Books and Dragons

A whimsical ink and watercolor sketchbook spread celebrating Midsummer as a cozy bookshelf scene. Two wooden shelves are draped in climbing vines with white daisy-like flowers. The top shelf holds hand-lettered book spines in two clusters: witchcraft and herbalism titles on the left (Leechcraft, Saxon Sorcery, Herbal Lore, Wild Magic, House Witch) with a steaming black cauldron at centre, then psychology and self-help titles on the right (The Happiness Trap, A Liberated Mind, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Disentangle, Set Boundaries, Disease to Please). Small black soot-sprite creatures peek from behind the spines, and a contemplative teal dragon with a question-mark speech bubble perches at the far right. The second shelf holds writing craft books (Million Dollar Outlines, Outline Your Novel), a cup of pens, and a rolled yellow scroll. Below the shelves, a bunting banner spells out MIDSUMMER in teal and multicolour letters, flanked by two crumpled weather-note tags recording Friday 20 June 2026 and Saturday 27 June temperatures. At the bottom of the page, a blue dragon sleeps curled at lower left, a green dragon dozes on an open book at centre with ZZZ drifting upward, and soot sprites cluster at lower right with tiny stacked books. The mood is warm, witchy, and softly celebratory.

So the question comes up, how do I document that I’m buying books, when I buy ebooks, and don’t really have anything to actually sketch? I could sketch the covers. I could sketch the kindle or the kobo. Or I could venture out of the world of observational sketching only, and venture into illustration. Gasp!

Well, if I’m going to venture into illustration, might as well add soot sprites and dragons then! Ha! So here is my illustrated bookshelf. the books are real and purchased, and I really am working on Homestead and Haven. The shelves, the vines, the flowers, the soot sprites, and the baby dragons are just for delight.

Done with ink and watercolor wash, using my standard watercolor palette.

I think my favorite is that poor soot sprite trying so hard not to fall off that weather card! He is having a struggle moment, for sure!

Date and Weather Notecards

A sketchbook spread with a clean white background. Three small handmade weather diary cards in pale yellow are arranged vertically along the left margin (Saturday June 20, Sunday June 21, Monday June 22), and three more along the right margin (Tuesday June 23, Wednesday June 24, Thursday June 25). The center two pages are occupied by two large collaged prints: on the left, an ornate botanical mandala with a sunflower-like starburst in black, white, and gold, surrounded by small decorative flourishes; on the right, a botanical illustration plate showing detailed flowers and foliage in black ink and amber tones, with scientific-style annotations. Temperatures on all six cards range from 105°F to 114°F.

If nothing else this month (or two), I finally attempted to draw little aged note cards to give my weather pages a bit more design. Even when I’m not sketching, or doing much of anything else, I like to keep the weather notes and dates in my sketchbook to mark the passage of time. They serve as a record of when the going was more pitted gravel than smooth highway.

A sketchbook spread on white paper. The left page shows a handwritten weather diary for seven days (Wednesday May 20 through Tuesday May 26, 2026), with each entry recording the date, high and low temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, and a small hand-drawn weather icon — sun, partial cloud, or crescent moon. Temperatures range from 95°F to 98°F for highs. At the top right of the page, handwritten notes read "GoFun White No 101" and "Flax Beige No 401." The right page features a collage of three tarot-style cards at the bottom left — one showing a rose, one showing roses with swords, one labeled "Blades of Destiny" with a skull — and a large decorative print in the upper right: an intricate compass rose surrounded by botanical illustrations, pressed flowers, and heart motifs in black, grey, and dusty pink. — Weather diary, May 20–26.

I’m currently working in a new Stillman & Birn 7.5″ square Alpha. Remarkably, this page marks only the fourth spread in volume 30. Thirty!

Recently, my printer stopped working, (too old for modern networks!) which forced me to pivot. I ended up getting a new one, and since I had a junk journal kit on hand, I decided to test print with it. When I didn’t end up sketching anything else to capture the days, I used those pages for collage. I became captivated by that specific shade of aged paper and wondered if my Gansai Tambi paints could match it.

Gofun White 101: A perfect match for the natural shade of the Alpha paper.
Flax Beige 401: Has great potential for an “aged” look, but didn’t quite match these specific printed sheets.

Shifting Plans & Playing with Color

A sketchbook spread dominated by a vivid, mottled watercolor background in loose washes of yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, and red-orange. Scattered across both pages are twelve small handwritten note cards, each recording the date, high temperature, low temperature, and weather icon for one day from Wednesday May 27 through Sunday June 7, 2026. Some cards also note a wake-up time. The cards appear slightly irregular, as if hand-torn, and are drawn to look aged, with outlined borders. Temperatures climb from the mid-90s°F into the low 100s°F — Weather diary, May 27–June 7.

I had plans for sketching, but as the days slipped away, I simply played with watercolor and stencils. I used the Holbein watercolors that I assembled into my Travel Sketching palette (which I talked about in my last post). The dark blue spots were stenciled with watercolor over the color blocked background.

Crafting the Aged Look

A sketchbook spread with a dark, smoky purple-grey watercolor background on the left page, and a soft solid yellow on the right page (left blank). Scattered across the dark left side are twelve small handmade note cards in warm amber-yellow tones, each recording weather data for one day from Monday June 8 through Friday June 19, 2026. Several cards note a wake-up time (5:30, 4:50, 4:00, 4:45, 3:30). The cards are hand-drawn to look aged and yellowed, with dark outlines. Temperatures range from 103°F to 112°F. — Weather diary, June 8–19.

Really diving into how to make these note cards look aged, I used the Holbein palette:

Yellow Ochre: Used for that weathered, historic feel.
Eurasian Jay Rose Grey: The moody background complementary color to make the cards pop.
Jaune Brilliant 1: The yellowed wash on the facing page.

I originally intended to sketch something specific for the summer solstice, but I suspect now that this solid wash of color will remain as my tribute to the day.

Solstice Collaging

Fortunately, this junk journal page felt incredibly fitting for the solstice, so I collaged it in alongside the Jaune Brilliant 1 note cards.

That opacity gave me some trouble over the text. With opaque paints I should probably paint my background first, or stick to a much more transparent paint!

Even when energy is low, keeping a visual record, an illustrated diary is important to me. I miss it, but at least I’ve captured this era in these small ways.

Sanguine Tomatoes

wo side-by-side illustrated food diary pages showing meals from Saturday 9 May and Sunday 10 May 2026, painted in a limited color palette using Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Markers. Each day shows loose watercolor sketches of meals arranged on yellow plates and bowls, including a cupcake, salad, and various dishes, rendered in soft washes of yellow, green, brown, blue and muted red.

What do you do with a bag of many different types of markers, all in the same palette? Draw food, of course.

Well, I draw the food anyway. I’d been loving the Sailor Shikiori markers for food sketching — those gorgeous watery effects! But I’d also just finished building the same Travel Sketching palette six ways. Or eight. (What? I got obsessed.)

I knew the palette worked for landscapes and cityscapes. But food? I had to find out.

A sketchbook spread covering Tuesday 5 May through Friday 8 May 2026, showing four days of illustrated food diary entries. Each day's meals are painted as small loose watercolor sketches of bowls and plates in a limited warm palette, with handwritten meal names, costs, calories, and macros. Media noted include Goldfinbar Aqua Dual Brush Markers. — Food sketches in Shikiori and Goldfaber Aqua Dual Brush Markers, 5–8 May 2026

Shikiori markers for the first few days as I had been doing previously, then the Goldfaber Aqua Dual Brush Markers, then the Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Markers, and finally the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens — my first time ever using those in color.

Not too bad, actually! The water-based markers end up more similar than different — the palette mostly wins. Except those tomatoes. You have to think about it to realize they’re tomatoes, because the sanguine is just not red enough. Every single person who looked at my sketchbook squinted at them. Sorry, tomatoes. You deserved better.

A sketchbook spread covering Saturday 9 May through Tuesday 12 May 2026, showing four more days of illustrated food diary entries in a limited watercolor palette. Meals are painted as small loose sketches of bowls and plates with handwritten annotations. A journal entry on the right notes creating the Sketchbook Index and starting Lesson 1 of the Travel Sketching course. Media noted include Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Markers and Faber-Castell Fine Brush Pen. — Food Sketches in Albrect Dürer Watercolor Markers, and Pitt Artist Brush Pens, 9–12 May 2026

In other news — I started indexing all my sketchbook pages. Can you imagine? A searchable index so I can find when I last sketched a particular subject, or when I sampled a paint color and then never used it again. Oh yes.

I didn’t draw the geese

A watercolor painting of a dramatic fire-red sunset sky, framed by loose bold painted borders. A dark silhouetted treeline and rooftops stretch across the middle ground, rendered in deep brown-black washes. The entire sky above and below the horizon glows in intense layers of orange and red, painted in Bloodstone Genuine and Transparent Pyrrol Orange watercolor.

On Monday evening I walked over to Stonecreek to check on the goslings. They’re at that awkward adolescent phase where their down has turned brown instead of green, but their tail feathers are not yet coming in. I chickened out on drawing them.

The sky, however, was putting on a show. I captured the soft pastels while the geese were eating. But I could tell the color was going to be spectacular so I raced to the other side of the pond, to catch the reflections. This extraordinary fire-red-orange rewarded me. What a stunning sunset! I found out the next day there was a wildfire to the west of town. That might explain the stunning color.

I used Bloodstone Genuine and Transparent Pyrrol Orange. Even the frame is all watercolor. My first “Darks” drawing for May’s Patreon theme by Liz Steel.

A sketchbook spread covering Sunday 3 May and Monday 4 May 2026. Left side shows a Coloring Book of Shadows Earth element page and two Diamine ink swatches labeled Lady Grey and Earl Grey. Center, handwritten journal notes about walking at Stonecreek and watching the sunset. Right, a bold watercolor painting of a fiery red-orange sunset sky with a dark silhouetted treeline, painted in dramatic washes of orange, red, and deep brown-black. — Fiery Sunset, 3–4 May 2026

April, in Dinners

Close-up detail from the April 21–22, 2026 food diary spread. A bowl of Greek bowtie pasta with cheese sits beside a small round bowl of Giggles candy in cheerful confetti colors — red, orange, yellow, purple, and green — in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook.

Dinners Only

The last food diary post took me through April 6th. Then April happened.

It wasn’t a bad month exactly, but it was a rocky one with symptoms flaring, energy unreliable, the kind of month where keeping up with a daily sketchbook practice just wasn’t in the cards. I kept eating dinner. I just wasn’t drawing it.

So yesterday I sat down with my phone, pulled up my photos, and drew twenty-six days of dinners in one go. Two and a half hours with the Shikiori markers, then another fifty minutes going back over everything with water to activate the color. I do love the blooms that activating watercolor markers can generate! Five pages. April 7th through May 3rd, all in one long, slightly meditative catch-up session.

Three days of food diary sketches in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, drawn in Shikiori markers with watercolor activation. April 7 shows BBQ chips, peanut butter cups, and quesadillas. April 8 shows more chips,sedanini with spinach and a quesadilla with enchilada sauce. April 9 shows a flying avocado, a fruit cup, and lemon cake. — April 7–9, 2026 — Food Diary catch-up — Stillman & Birn Delta

I’ve done dinners-only before, back in 2022, but not since. The logic is the same now as it was then: breakfast and lunch don’t vary enough to sketch, and if something in my diet is causing a flare, it’s almost certainly lurking in dinner. The food diary is part creative practice, part detective work.

Drawing from photos all at once gave the pages a consistency I don’t usually get from in-the-moment sketching. Same hand, same markers, same energy — everything has a kind of visual unity that I actually like. It’s a different flow from the day-by-day record, but it’s still a record.

Five days of food diary sketches in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, drawn in Shikiori markers with watercolor activation. April 10 shows banana, quesadilla, and a Ciao sparkling water. April 11 shows quesadilla with enchilada sauce. April 12 shows a glow bowl, lemon cake, and lemonade. April 13 shows applewood cheddar with crackers and red bean chili. April 14 shows cherry tomatoes, chocolate cookies, and cheddar crackers with vegan bacon. — April 10–14, 2026 — Food Diary catch-up — Stillman & Birn Delta

Highlights and lowlights, in no particular order.

April 9th has a flying avocado, a fruit cup, and lemon cake, and I’m pleased with how cheerful it came out. April 12th’s glow bowl is one of the better-looking plates in the whole run. The cheesy lemon spaghetti on April 18th was delicious and the sketch knows it.

Six days of food diary sketches in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, drawn in Shikiori markers with watercolor activation. Dates run April 15 through April 20, with meals including a Leafside creamy mushroom bowl, cherry tomatoes, a peanut butter sandwich cookie plate, cheesy lemon spaghetti, and carrot cake. A hand-lettered box reading DINNERS ONLY appears on the right-hand page. — April 15–20, 2026 — Food Diary catch-up — Stillman & Birn Delta

The DINNERS ONLY box that appears mid-April — I lettered it right there on the page as a label to remind myself I did still eat lunches! It has a slightly resigned, slightly determined energy that I feel captures the month accurately.

Seven days of food diary sketches in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, drawn in Shikiori markers with watercolor activation. Dates run April 21 through April 27, with meals including Greek bowtie pasta with cheese, a small bowl of Giggles candy, cherry tomatoes, quesadillas with salsa, dolmas with tomatoes and carrots, Mexican wedding cookies, spaghetti marinara, and carrot cake with a glow bowl. — April 21–27, 2026 — Food Diary catch-up — Stillman & Birn Delta

And then there’s the quesadilla. It shows up nine times. Nine. Quesadilla with enchilada sauce, quesadilla with salsa, quesadilla solo, quesadilla as a supporting player. It has practically become a character in this sketchbook. My Whoop has been giving me pointed looks about it. I asked about my poor sleep, and the theory offered is that a high fat and high carb dinner combination might be doing my sleep no favors. I did not buy tortillas on my last shopping trip. Let’s test this theory and see what happens. (But what will I eat on high brain fog, low energy days?)

Seven days of food diary sketches in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, drawn in Shikiori markers with watercolor activation. Dates run April 28 through May 3, with meals including quesadillas with salsa, avocado, cherry chocolate walnut dessert, hummus with dolmas and rice stackers, hemp cheese and bean burgers, crackers with vegan bacon and tomatoes, carrot cake with a glow bowl, and spaghetti marinara. — April 28–May 3, 2026 — Food Diary catch-up — Stillman & Birn Delta

This also concludes the small Delta Sketchbook that is my 29th sketchbook and my 6th food volume.

The featured image up top is from the April 21st spread — Greek bowtie pasta, and a little bowl of Giggles (allergen-friendly candy, think Skittles) with those bright confetti dot colors. It’s one of my favorites from the whole batch. Twenty-six dinners, one sitting, five pages. The record exists. On to May. Without my go to quesadillas!

Beltane Flowers

A loose watercolor sketch of a bouquet of orange roses and carnations in a green vase, with chartreuse and soft green foliage in the background, painted in a fluid, gestural style.

Beltane comes and you can feel the season changing. I needed a week off. (Burnout persists!) I tried to clear the decks. I ordered a soft peachy floral display with sage colored leaves for the soothing soft vibes. (The order promised peach roses, white Asiatic lilies, peach miniature carnations, and white stock, accented with pitta negra, dusty miller, and a soft green echeveria succulent.)

I printed my Coloring Book of Shadows Beltane images and the start of May as well, and distributed them through the remaining 12 pages (six spreads) of sketchbook volume 28. So close to the end I can taste it! I’m eager! I’m ready to move out of this year plus long series of landscape sketchbooks, testing the various Stillman and Birns papers. It’s been great, and I learned a lot about the papers. I am ready for a bigger page! I left room for sketches and hoped the spread-out collage pieces would create harmony on the pages. (The jury is still out on that.)

My flowers arrived, and I received vibrant orange and dark green instead. “Flowers may be substituted.” (Tropicana roses, white Asiatic lilies, orange carnations, and white stock with leatherleaf fern and salal, and a dark green echeveria succulent.)

Well, I guess we’re doing Transparent Pyrrol Orange today!

A sketchbook spread dated Friday 1 May 2026. On the left, a decorated Beltane page from the Coloring Book of Shadows, filled with flowers, pentagrams, hearts and swirls in pink, green, and blue. Center, a loose watercolor bouquet of orange roses in a green vase. Right edge, a small illustrated maypole with ribbons and flowers. — Beltane Flowers. 1 May 2026

These are the flowers I received, so I’ll paint them as they came. I tried to capture the white Asiatic lilies and the white stock flowers. White flowers are hard to paint! The Transparent Pyrrol Orange was the perfect shade for the orange flowers, with no mixing needed. I did not paint it as bright as those Tropicana roses, though. I carried that color palette over to the Beltane collage sticker, as the new color story of the day.

A sketchbook spread dated Saturday 2 May 2026. Far left, a Coloring Book of Shadows garden charms and spells page. Center, two abstract ink blob shapes in deep blue-black with dramatic chromatography, with handwritten notes reading "Keep up the Momentum / Peace / Sanity!" Below, a small plant illustration labeled "Diamine Good Tidings." Right side, a handwritten journal entry about a big garage declutter, with a Taurus/Gemini astrological illustrated page and cubic footage tracking notes. — Ink Wash Bags for Declutter, 2 May 2026

Naturally, the weather threatened a crazy heat wave coming, and working in a hot garage is a bad idea, so I pushed to finish the garage declutter while the cooler temperature held one last weekend.

Two abstract ink shapes resembling garbage bags, painted in deep blue-black ink with dramatic blue chromatography bleeding through the centers, creating an almost celestial or eclipse-like effect. — Robert Oster Graphite ink wash sketch, 2 May 2026

I love doing these Robert Oster Graphite inky chromatography garbage bags to document the decluttering. They are so expressive, and that color separation is delicious. Another big day of decluttering, and that settles the garage for the next eight months.

A watercolor and ink sketch of a stack of journals — black Witch's Composition Books and a red Aries Journal Book with a medallion on the cover — rendered in bold red, black, and grey washes. — Book Still-life — ink and watercolor. 2 May 2026

The Start Your Sketchbook Journal course by Danny Gregory is exactly what I want to be doing with my sketchbook practice, but I keep putting off the course. Maybe because I’m terrible at taking time off, and when I need a break, I end up decluttering garages, so the self-paced courses get put off so easily? Yeah. That.

A sketchbook spread showing a watercolor and ink sketch of stacked Coloring Book of Shadows journals on the left — black Witch's Composition Books and a red Aries Journal Book. Center, a decorated candle illustration with garlic, peppers, and onion. Right side, a "Start Your Sketchbook Journal" prompt page with a broom and flower bucket illustration and handwritten personal reflections about returning to an illustrated journal practice. — Notebooks still life, 2 May 2026

But I sketched the new delivery of composition books and Aries Journal from Coloring Book of Shadows. I even sketched one of the corner designs by hand! I really need to practice illustration-style sketching!

Third Time’s the Charm: Travel Sketching is Back

A watercolor pencil sketch of a back yard garden bed, showing a row of tall weeds and trees against a grey wall, with orange-red flowering plants at the left, golden weeds in the centre, and two decomposing barrel planters rendered as dark rounded shapes on the rocky ground. A shepherd's hook curves up between the plantings.

Liz Steel’s Sketching Now Travel Sketching live run, begins later this month and I am jumping back in for my third attempt. I did finish the first run. The second run, I started but let’s just say life had other plans. I have tagged the whole archive of my posts if you want to see the full saga. The official start date is May 13th, but I’m getting a head start on the Introduction lessons.

The “Before” Sketch

The Introduction includes a “current sketch” exercise. Your sketching where you are right now, before the course begins. Since I’ve done this before, I decided to sketch my back yard again. This is the same view I did as my first before sketch. Not only has the yard changed, but so has my sketching.

Naturally, I also had to document the fact that after seven months of delays in the landscaping (It’s been a whole drama!) the yard has finally been weeded. Those prickly lettuce plants had grown over six feet tall. Six feet! They were taller than me. I have photographic evidence. I think they were starting to develop permanent occupation plans. So the timing of this sketch gets to commemorate both that drama and its blissful conclusion on the day I did these. A dramatic before and after set of sketches for the yard.

The before sketch, with weeds, is in the Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils, The after sketch is GoldFaber Aqua Markers. You can see the difference in the mediums, since I used the same color palette for both sketches. The marker version is noticeably brighter and more saturated; it’s the same scene, same composition, same palette, but a different medium. I really want to see how different mediums behave, and comparing the same color palette is a great way to do that.

A watercolor marker sketch of the back yard, with a large orange-topped shrub at the left rendered in bright saturated colour, a grey wall wash behind, and two decomposing barrel planters in deep burgundy and purple tones at centre and right. I bold and saturated color. — Back yard, freshly weeded, in GoldFaber Aqua Markers.

The yard features some very photogenic old barrel planters that are in the process of dramatically decomposing. They show up in both sketches as dark, slightly melancholy blobs surrounded by splaying lines. Less moody than the photographs of them!

full sketchbook spread dated Thursday 30 April 2026, showing two watercolour sketches of the same back yard garden bed side by side — the left in softer watercolour pencil tones, the right in brighter, more saturated marker colours. Handwritten weather notes show 92°F and 67°F. A note in the upper right reads that the yard has finally been weeded after seven months, and that the before sketch was done in Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils and the after in GoldFaber Aqua Markers. Decorative illustrated borders from a Coloring Book of Shadows frame both sides of the spread with Beltane-themed botanical imagery. — Back yard sketches, before and after weeding. 30 April 2026.

The Kit

Part of the Introduction is also assembling materials for the travel sketching kit and doing a color/material chart. I wrote about my obsession with testing multiple media in this limited palette.

A two-page spread showing a travel sketching kit chart. The left page tests various pens and pencils with line and swatch samples, labelled with tool names including Isograph, TWSBI Urban Gray, Tombow Fudenosuke Hard, Copic BS, Pentel Brush Sepia, and Derwent Inktense pencils in Charcoal, Neutral, and Sepia Ink. The right page shows rows of colour swatches for multiple media including Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils, Derwent Inktense, GoldFaber Aqua Dual Markers, Albrecht Dürer Pitt WC Markers, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush, and Neocolor II, with a bottom row of watercolour paint swatches. A teal banner at the bottom reads "Travel Sketching Kit." — Travel Sketching Kit, April/May 2026.

Here’s what I’ll be working with for this run:

For line work, I have an Isograph 005 and 0.30, a TWSBI Urban Gray (F nib), a Copic BS, a Pentel Brush Sepia, and a Tombow WB-HB Fudenosuke Hard.

The course calls for graphite, but I’m skipping it since I find graphite too smudgy. I do have the one 3H pencil. For pencil sketches, however, I’m substituting three Derwent Inktense pencils: Charcoal (2100), Neutral (2120), and Sepia Ink (2010). I also have the class palette in Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils, Derwent Inktense pencils, plus GoldFaber Aqua Dual Markers, Albrecht Dürer Pitt WC Markers, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush pens, and Neocolor II water-soluble crayons.

For watercolor, my palette is: Hansa Yellow Light, Hansa Yellow Medium, Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Quinacridone Gold, Transparent Pyrrol Orange, Quinacridone Rose, Potter’s Pink, Sap Green, Cobalt Turquoise Light, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Transparent Red Oxide, Van Dyke Brown, and Shadow Violet. There are also two Caput Mortuum swatches at the side, because I’m currently infatuated with that color.

The Sketchbook

I’ll be starting in my current 6×9 inch Stillman & Birn Alpha, even though I only have a few pages left in it. Shortly I’ll be moving to a 7.5×7.5 inch softcover Alpha. Both are Stillman & Birn, both are the Alpha series, just slightly different proportions. It’ll be interesting to see how the square format feels for travel sketching.

The weeds are gone, the kit is ready, and the barrel planters have been immortalized in watercolor. What more could I need? I’m ready!

Ink Swatches and Garbage Bags

Two large ink washed garbage bags on white sketchbook paper, rendered in Robert Oster Graphite ink. The blobs are deep dark purple-brown with dramatic teal and turquoise chromatography blooms spreading through the pigment, giving each shape a moody atmospheric quality. Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook.

The date and the weather. Then a bit of text. Then a blank space for a sketch that never happened.

I was watching Edges lessons, scaling back after “losing” so many weeks of March and April. With class ending in a week, I was never going to catch up, so I gave myself permission to just absorb the main lesson videos only. I’ll take the course again when next it runs live. When Sunday came along, and I knew I wanted to sketch the decluttering, I decided to fill the blank spaces with ink that I haven’t swatched yet.

Have I mentioned I have a LOT of fountain pen ink?

A double page spread in a Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook covering Friday 24 through Sunday 26 April 2026. The left section shows handwritten journal entries for Friday with the heading Edges and a Sailor Yurameku Seki ink wash swatch in a soft ethereal grey-purple. The center section shows a Ferris Wheel Press Adventurine wash swatch in dusty rosy grey with journal notes. The right section shows handwritten decluttering metrics and a symbol tracking chart alongside two large Robert Oster Graphite chromatography garbage bags, labeled 268 cu ft Declutter. — Ink swatches and decluttering — Sailor Yurameku Seki, Ferris Wheel Press Adventurine, Robert Oster Graphite — Stillman & Birn Alpha, 24–26 April 2026

A large soft ink wash swatch on white sketchbook paper, labeled Sailor Yurameku Seki in the artist's handwriting below. The wash is a delicate ethereal grey-purple with soft pink undertones, blooming and pooling gently across the page in an irregular rectangular shape with slightly ragged edges. Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook. — Sailor Yurameku Seki — Stillman & Birn Alpha, 24 April 2026

The first swatch is Sailor Yurameku Seki. A sample I ordered, and hadn’t tested yet. It’s soft and a little ethereal, with a beautiful pink undertone that blooms in the wash. These Sailor Yurameku inks have such lovely softness and multiple colors that separate beautifully in water.

A large soft ink wash swatch on white sketchbook paper, labeled Ferris Wheel Press Adventurine in the artist's handwriting above. The wash is a dusty rosy grey with subtle shimmer and soft pink undertones, spreading in a slightly uneven rectangular shape with organic edges. Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook. — Ferris Wheel Press Adventurine — Stillman & Birn Alpha, 25 April 2026

Ferris Wheel Press Adventurine, and that pink is actually a shimmering metallic! So pretty! Ferris Wheel Press Ferritales inks are genuinely special, and Adventurine is a good example of why. I will say that Alpha paper loses some of the shimmer and sheen of the inks. I need to work with Tomoe River paper to really let them perform. That’s a future experiment.

Three weekends in a row in April I’ve been doing a big push to declutter the garage before it gets too hot and I have to wait another 9 months. I hauled out trash bags, banker’s boxes, recycling, donations. It’s one of those projects that’s hard to maintain momentum on. Sketching it helps. I love my clutter sketches, but I haven’t been doing those right now. I wanted to find a way to visually document the progress of the declutter in my sketchbook, not just in before and after photographs. I wrote and sketched about decluttering back in July 2025, but stopped. Here’s to resuming, and making it a regular feature now, both for my house and my sketchbook!

A large dramatic ink wash swatch on white sketchbook paper labeled Robert Oster Graphite below. The wash is a deep dark purple-brown with vivid teal and turquoise chromatography blooms spreading through the pigment as the ink dried, creating an atmospheric landscape-like effect with bright teal highlights against the dark base. Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook. — Robert Oster Graphite — Stillman & Birn Alpha, 26 April 2026

Garbage bags are not pretty, but what a great subject for the inky chromatography! Black trash bags, black and dark grey inks that bleed into stunning colors! It’s a match made in heaven! Lay down heavy water, then drop in the ink, and let the ink do its magic. A lovely visual record is created.

But of course, I need to also track the metrics. A bit obsessively, perhaps. But hey, it’s very motivating to see the numbers build, for something that is often too easy to overlook and dismiss. You forget just how much you cleared out, because you get used to the look of the new space very quickly. So I also built a symbol chart to track the metrics. Trash bags by gallon size, banker’s boxes by cubic foot, trash and recycle bins, Car capacity for hauling. Everything converted into cubic feet, and also cubic meters for my international readers. (I’m thinking of you guys!) The 12th I got rid of 159 cubic feet, the 19th a more modest 15 (only my single bins were available. What an enormous difference in outflow!), and the 26th came in at 94. April’s total across three weekends: 268 cubic feet. 7.6 cubic meters. The garage is getting there! I’m racing the weather now, to finish the garage before it hits 100ºF/37ºC again!

I love how this page looks. The ink swatches filling the spaces where sketches didn’t happen, becoming a highlight feature I will absolutely use in the future. The decluttering inky garbage bags, and symbols tracking progress in the most dramatically beautiful way possible.

A Notes Page

A loose ink and watercolor sketch of a large green sparkling water bottle beside a stemmed glass on a white sketchbook page. The bottle is rendered in layered greens and teals with yellow highlights suggesting the plastic catching light, and the word "sparkling water" written on the label in the artist's hand. The glass is lightly sketched in grey with a yellow highlight streak suggesting reflected light. Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook.

I was watching Liz Steel’s Patreon livestream and taking notes. I like kind of dense note-taking that fills a page and then adding color blocks to give it some life. While I was watching, I sketched my sparkling water that was sitting in front of me. This is my first sketch since April 7th! I’ve only done color charts since then. And I haven’t sketched anything not food since One Week 100 People! Now that seems crazy, but I look over my sketchbook pages, and there it is, in full color!

A double page spread in a Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook dated Thursday 23 April 2026. Both pages are densely covered in handwritten Patreon livestream notes on Travel Sketching, with blocks of yellow and pink color wash behind sections of text. A sketch of a sparkling water bottle and stemmed glass appears on the right side of the spread in ink and watercolor. Planning notes in the upper right corner list the May theme as Darks, with Caput Mortuum noted in a box below. — Patreon Livestream notes with sparkling water bottle sketch — Stillman & Birn Alpha, 23 April 2026

I miss the sketching, but I guess it’s been a rough season.

The livestream introduced Liz’s May theme: Darks. Oh, I like this one! She mentioned starting with darks, pushing the darks, and even night sketching! Should I try night sketching? It never occurred to me before.

Starting with darks is a very useful approach, especially with the shapes that I often start with also. Committing to your darkest values early gives a sketch structure and stops it from looking flat and cartoonish. Deepening the darks in a scene, and increasing the value range, is one of the most reliable ways to add depth and presence. It’s the kind of thing that makes a sketch look like a real object or scene. I’m thinking of darks in terms of ink lines, too, not just watercolor.

However, I did immediately think of Caput Mortuum. My new infatuation born from pulling the Travel Sketching Palette together. That deep, complex brownish, reddish, purple that sits somewhere between burgundy and iron oxide. I have the Goldfaber Aqua and PITT Artist Brush pen, and I ordered watercolors Winsor & Newton and Sennelier both. You know, I need both to compare, right? Right? They haven’t arrived yet. But I am fantasizing about the darks it might make for me. How would such a warm, deep dark work in sketches? Seems perfect for the desert, and for summer, when even the deepest shadows are still meltingingly hot.

Obviously there will be Caput Mortuum swatches when the paint arrives! Plus I might finally break open my Bloodstone Genuine and compare it to Van Dyke Brown. Last summer Liz had swapped her Van Dyke Brown for Bloodstone Genuine, and I’ve been curious about the comparison ever since.

It feels good to be getting excited about this coming theme. It feels good to sketch again, after a longer span of time when I didn’t. It feels good to be excited about the upcoming Travel Sketching course, too. May is shaping up to be quite fun in the sketching department!

Cherries, Icing, and Feeling Poorly

Close-up detail from the Saturday 4 April 2026 food diary spread. A Ciao cherry sparkling water can in red and blue stands beside a small bowl of cherry tomatoes, and a large golden oval plate holds teriyaki pulled pork, jasmine rice, and zucchini noodles, all sitting on a soft purple watercolor wash. Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook.

Time for a catch-up post on the food diary. I’m still using the Shikiori markers. Four days, four very different spreads, and a peek into what happens when I sketch under varying degrees of brain function.

First, the errata page.

A double page spread in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook labeled Errata in bold lettering with a red heart on the left page. Loose watercolor sketches of deep red Amareno cherries are scattered across the left page with handwritten notes about forgotten food entries. The right page shows a detailed sketch of a Miss Jones cream cheese icing container in green and red, with handwritten cost and nutrition data. Dated Friday 3 April 2026. — Friday 3 April 2026 — Errata — Stillman & Birn Delta

I forgot to log the Amareno cherries I ate by the spoonful while cooking lunch. Those deep jewel reds were so fun to paint, and drawing bigger than usual suited them. The Miss Jones cream cheese icing on the right got its own sketch too, because apparently I also ate several spoonfuls of that while making dinner. I have regrets. I suspect the extra sugar gets my heart going. And yes, for mysterious reasons I have been bingeing more sugar lately. Trying to rein that in.

A double page food diary spread dated Saturday 4 April 2026. A lineup of food items sits along a deep purple watercolor horizon wash. Left to right: a dark chocolate bar and blue-lidded container, a tall green sparkling water bottle, a Miss Jones cream cheese jar in green and red, a golden bowl of red lentil pasta with spinach, a second green sparkling water bottle, a small bowl with a Ciao cherry sparkling water can, and a large golden oval plate with teriyaki pulled pork, jasmine rice, and zucchini noodles. Handwritten food names, costs, and nutrition totals below. — Saturday 4 April 2026 — Food Sketch in Stillman & Birn Delta

Saturday was a proper cooking day with teriyaki vegan pulled pork, jasmine rice, and zucchini noodles. It was very good and I was pleased with the sketch. I did this day’s sketches in the moment! My sunflower plate with the purple shadow wash underneath is one of my favorite things I’ve painted in this book so far. (And I didn’t forget to include the rest of the icing I finished off on the second day of it being open!)

A double page food diary spread dated Sunday 5 April 2026. A loose watercolor lineup of food items stretches across both pages along a soft blue-grey horizon wash. Items include a pink sparkling water bottle, dark chocolate, a red lentil pasta bowl, a Summer Strawberry sparkling water bottle, two halves of a bento box — one with dolmas, baby carrots, hummus and herb garlic cheese, the other with cherry tomatoes and kalamata olives — followed by a plate of salmon with roasted vegetables and mac and cheese, lemon olive oil cake muffins, and a lemonade. Handwritten food names and nutrition data in the lower left. Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook. — Sunday 5 April 2026 — Food Sketches Stillman & Birn Delta

Sunday was a big food day. Bento box with dolmas, baby carrots, hummus and herb garlic cheese (vegan) in one half, cherry tomatoes and kalamata olives in the other, then salmon with roasted vegetables and mac and cheese for dinner, finished off with lemon olive oil cake muffins and a lemonade. It looks like a cheerful parade of colorful shapes across the page, which is exactly what it was.

A double page food diary spread dated Monday 6 April 2026. Loose, expressive watercolor shapes sit against a broad green wash background. A pink heart doodle appears in the upper left corner. Items left to right include dark chocolate, sparkling water, trail mix, a red lentil pasta bowl with spinach, a quesadilla with enchilada sauce, and sparkling water. A handwritten food and cost summary box on the right is labeled "Feeling Poorly." Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook. — Monday 6 April 2026 — Feeling Poorly Food Sketches Stillman & Birn Delta

And then Monday. I was not feeling well, and it shows. The whole spread went down in a loose green wash and I forgot to sketch the cookies entirely. The little pink heart in the corner was doing its best. Some days the diary is a beautiful detailed record, and some days it’s an honest green blob. That I’m keeping up is a miracle, when the bad brain hits. I blame the sugar and the allergens I had eating out on Sunday. Which is the whole reason I like to sketch my food, so it’s easier to find the culprits, when the body crashes or outbreaks or flares up days later.