Sketchbooking #1

(Well, #'s 5 and 6, actually....)

I bought this japanese sketchbook a little over a year ago at the University of Washington bookstore in Seattle on one of my jaunts up thataway.  Because I needed another sketchbook.

Ahem.

And right around this time last year, I decided I wanted to use it rather than just hoard it, as is my natural predilection, and decided to give it a theme.  After tossing around a couple ideas, I decided on "doors".

I finally -- FINALLY -- filled it up a couple days ago.  Apparently, I'm not so inspired by themes as I thought; I let the thing sit, sometimes for months, between drawings, and expanded it to doors, windows, the occasional sign, and door hardware instead of being strictly just doors by the end.  

But it worked, and now volume #5 is completely full of 60 sketches of varying media (mostly watercolor) and varying success (there are a couple that I'd cringe if anyone saw them, but mostly, I like them).

Then there was this book of patterns:

It's huge.  Like, 18" on the long side, huge.

I wanted to make my own patterned stock, with the intention of using them to make covers for inserts for my Midori Traveler's Notebook for this year.  Filled up this giant sketchpad with watercolor patterns over the last month, and finally finished the whole stack on New Year's Day.

From it, I learned that I'm not all that fond of working big, and that an intricate pattern can take longer than an actual drawing to complete.  (And that I'll probably just buy printed stock for my inserts from here on out. :D)

Anyway, that's two more sketchbooks, 100% full, which was the whole point.

Now, I've just got, uh...thirty more or so to go.

(If I don't buy more.)

um.

(I'll probably buy more.  It's an addiction, people.  Paper.  Yum.)