Tag Archives: sketchingnowsketchbook

Materials Sketch

My sketchbook and materials for this class. I am currently preferring the smaller size and the alpha paper. I have two going at the moment, a 6×9-inch landscape that I started for the Travel Sketching Class, and a 7.5-inch square that is my everyday. It’s almost finished! I am also carrying around an A5 Stalogy that I was using as my food diary sketchbook since it’s pages are super thin and it does take watercolor without bleeding, so I can have a longer period of time in one book. I haven’t kept it up, so I may abandon it soon? This trio of sketchbooks I’ve been carrying around for a couple months now, so it feels very familiar. (Note to self, I’m looking forward to taking Foundations again in January, because I’m still not getting the angles on stacks of books right! Hardest thing to draw! Ever!) These two sketches are actually on two different pages of my sketchbook, but they would have looked quite good together in one spread!

Should I continue my memory lane search for the materials sketches I did in previous iterations of this class?

My materials and palette sketch from the January 2021 class. The palette in particular brings me back, because I’ve used a variety of palettes since then.

My materials sketch (and a food sketch!) from the August 2021 class.

Sketch of Materials I did for the January 2023 class. I see I used a similar stack of sketchbooks for my composition! I never did use that Etchr sketchbook, though. Interesting. Both those Alpha books got filled up since then, however.

Sketchbooks hold such wonderful memories, don’t they?

Handwriting Tips

Always a fun page to do for Sketchbook Design Class. This year I’m keeping things simple and using only different widths of pen for headings. I have been opting for fast over style lately. As ever, I always use my own cursive for the majority of my text, as it is very easy and very fast for me.

I got curious when I did this page to see what I had done in previous runs for this class.

This one is from January 2021, when the sketchbook design class premiered. It was a revelation the first time I took it, and it improved the overall look of my sketchbooks a hundredfold!

August 2021 was my second run of the class, and I consider the pages I was making then the best of my work. I aim to get back to the skills I had then! I have always loved this page spread so very much. Especially those sunflowers! August is sunflower month, and I enjoyed capturing that, and the fresh cut flowers I had when I did this spread.

Then in January 2023, for class I did this spread. I like it, too.

Now I’m taking my fourth run through this course to reinvigorate my sketchbook design skills and practice. Looking back through these older versions of the same assignment certainly does inspire me.

Sketchbook Design Goals

The first of the Intro Assignments is to draw a page, and list our goals for the class. Apparently I forgot to share this one when I did it. So how about I continue on the memory lane with this same assignment from previous years?

From January 2021.

Same spread I showed for the Handwriting tips, because I put both on one spread. What a huge difference in my Sketchbook Design is plainly visible in this spread, done just a few months after the first run of the class! This blows my mind!

Here is the Goals page I did in January 2023. My goals themselves don’t change much, but there is such an evolution on my style I’m not sure I ever would have realized if I hadn’t been showing these back to back!

Sketchbook Design January 2023

Here’s the wrap-up of my third run of this course. This class remains, by far, my absolute favorite, and it never fails to inspire and elevate my sketchbook practice.

I appear not to have uploaded the other pages from this run of the class, so maybe I’ll update this page at some point, if I do upload the rest.