Drawing All The Things

A while back, I found this set of Nature Encyclopedias at a thrift shop for less than five bucks for the set.

Of course, they had to come home with me.  I had no real plans for them, but I figured something would come along eventually, even if that was just flipping through them and marvelling at the way we got our info before the internet was invented.

Because National Sketchbook Filling Month is kind of continuing indefinitely, I figured this was an opportunity.

I have blank pages to fill; these things are full of photo references of things I'd like to know more about.  Win-win.

This month, I'm using an A5 (landscape) Strathmore journal for my fill-it-up sketchbook, and I've been blowing through these volumes, drawing four or five things from each one.  It's mostly just my usual pencil-and-watercolor stuff, with a few gouache experiments here and there.  It's been keeping me occupied and my hands moving, and for that, I'm grateful.

A few from this month's play so far:

I'm on volume 4 (of 12), and I'm already about half-way through the book.

Which means this will probably be a longer-than-a-single-sketchbook project, but I'm okay with that.  (Planning on donating the set when I'm done with them, too, so this is both clear-out AND drawing practice.  Bonus score.)

p.s.  I did also "win" NaSkeFiMo last month and filled up the entire Pentalic journal during the month.  I'll see if I can't get a flip-through sometime soonish.  AND I finished the last pages in a journal someone gifted me with in 2014, post-storm, tonight.  Again, I'll see about a flip-through.  It's been interesting to see the evolution of style in the last two years. :)