New supplies, and mysteries, a lot of color testing Potter’s Pink, and seeking out those lavenders, February brought a mix of sketches.
This is the page that launched the lavender search. I was trying to color match the post card, and didn’t quite get the results I wanted.
I do love to sketch art supplies!
Here is the great search for how to make that lavender I was going for earlier in the month. Then I had to dive into Potter’s Pink and really get a true feel for what it does!
Continuing in my Sketchbook 2 tour, I have some classwork from both Foundations, as well as Watercolor on Location.
This was a failed effort to paint a landscape while out on location. I realized that I still have much to learn, since I had no idea how to fix the issues I had.
This wine bottle and glass sketch is one of my favorite ever sketches!
The complete sketchbook. I learned so much in the two years it took me to finish this book. I had multiple sketchbooks going during this time. I was really still struggling to establish the regular practice and habit that I wanted, as well as to build my drawing skills. I’m pretty sure I may always be working on both!
I believe this was my very first attempt at sketching my house. It may be my only attempt to date, now that I think about it.
After this, my sketchbook efforts get quite sketchy indeed. I wanted to sketch daily, but missed the mark, so I’d leave pages blank. Sometimes I’d fill them in with either notes of what I wanted to sketch, or of quick pencil thumbnails. The next ten or so pages of this sketchbook are quite a hodgepodge of miscellany and incomplete pages. Eventually I simply moved on, and now this is like a time capsule of those very first, very insecure efforts!
Here is when I started to realize that maybe the paper in this book was giving the troubles and not my skills. The bleed through that was happening is what convinced me this paper was not well suited to the watercolor techniques I was most interested in.
My very first dedicated sketchbook was definitely a rough thing. I started it in 2018 with an attempt to Draw Your Day, as I was inspired by Samantha Dion’s book by the same title.
My colors were too pale, and it was bleeding through, and I thought I was painting “wrong.” It would take me almost two years to realize it wasn’t me, it was the paper.
Lesson… paper makes a big difference!
Since my intention was a daily sketchbook, and I wasn’t keeping up with that, I left blank pages on the idea that I would “catch-up” later. I still tend to do that. I rarely catch-up! So in April 2019 I decided to just go back in and start sketching in those blank pages.
Looking back I can see how much I was experimenting and learning. I wanted to capture the same things I am still seeking to capture in every day life, with everyday sketching. I was playing a lot with different tools, including watercolor pencils.
I almost didn’t post this since the work is what I would consider terrible, and tragically beginner, and not at all as wonderful as what I see others post. But then, it is far to easy to compare ourselves, and utterly forget that most people are not posting their beginner work, but their work after a decade or more of practice. Many are professionals. It has taken me a long time to realize that I’m not required to produce professional grade art work without any training or any practice, starting from my very first effort. In fact, what a damaging idea, yet so many of us carry it. I certainly do! So here is my beginner work, raw, and rough, and terrible, yet beautiful in its beginnings and in its ability to capture where my journey begins.
Jamie's Sketchbook 