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Category Archives: Sketchbook

Childbirth and Creativity

I was always suspicious when I heard women say that childbirth was their most creative act. In my case, the only creativity involved was making some sketches from my hospital bed while waiting for the contractions to set in.

Warming Up

Sketching is such a nice “warm up” for the day. Whenever I sketch in the early mornings, I feel like the day is productive, no matter what I end up getting done. I sketched Katie the other day when she was still sleepy and feeling cuddly. In the mornings she loves to get pets and […]

Hurricane Non-Event

Hurricane (tropical storm) Irene proved to be a real non-event for my family other than our power going out for one hour. There was a gentle, steady rain with almost no wind. I’ve seen the lake more choppy on a sunny day in fact. It was generally just a gray, yucky day. Thankfully, I baked […]

Things That Came Up

Today was the first time that I sat down to do sketching of any sort in the past week and a half, because of various things that came up, namely: a death in the family moving having to divest about 70% of my possessions (because of the move) I’m not going to have my drafting […]

Plum Crumb

I sketched these leftover plums the other day after baking one of my favorite fruit desserts, plum crumb (recipe below). It has been a really long time since I ever sketched something in colored pencil for practice. I felt rusty and I want to start sketching using colored pencils more often. Here, I used four different […]

Sketching in the hot, hot sun

The other day I sat outside to draw these beautiful lilies. Unfortunately, it was much too hot for me and I was harassed by bees. I did finish my drawing, but I felt rushed. I added the watercolor later, indoors.

Ink Sketching in Moleskine Cahiers

Some ten minute sketches of a belt that fell off a sweatshirt of mine. My Noodler’s pen and bulletproof black ink seem to work well in my Moleskine cahiers. The ink dries quickly without feathering or smudging and the pen slides over the surface of the paper. I may actually find myself filling these books […]

I Jumped on the Noodler’s Flex Nib Bandwagon

A few weeks ago I ordered the Noodler’s Flex Nib pen after reading a number of reviews online (see reviews from Nina Johansson, Cathy Johnson, and Roz Stendahl). I actually ordered two pens, in Lapis Inferno and Vulcan’s Coral, mainly because I wanted to be able to use two different colored inks. Also, so many people […]

Nature Sketching Update

This past weekend I went outside and attempted nature sketching again. I am trying not to expose myself to a lot of chemicals, which makes repelling mosquitoes kind of difficult. I read somewhere that mosquitoes do not like the smell of vanilla, so I tried using some vanilla perfume that I have from the Body […]

Onto Other Things

About halfway through May I quit my drawing project, because I got bored with it and wanted to do my own thing. I realize now that I don’t like being “told” what to draw. Instead, I started a new watercolor floral painting. I’m still working on it, but I might not post it because I’m […]