waiting...gratefully.

So I ordered these pencils.

They're just pencils.  Not even really Fancy Art Pencils(tm) or anything,  Just new pencils, which are always infinitely better than old pencils, even when the old pencils are perfectly fine and pencilly and still make marks on paper, which is what pencils of both varieties are supposed to do.

Despite this fact, I've become a bit obsessed with their delivery.

Or, as the case may be, non-delivery.  The weather on the east coast, with all it's bomb cyclone nonsense, delayed packages, and my pencil pusher is in New York.  So my order is somewhere, probably frozen in a block of ice, and it made me all sad and junk.

To combat this, I decided to be grateful for what I have.

I know.  Not exactly revolutionary stuff, here.  But it's easy to forget: even if there's new stuff, the old stuff still works. 

Sometimes, it even works really well and better than you remember.

I spent last night mucking out simple supplies.  Testing all my brushes to see which ones I like best.  Playing with markers to both make sure they still work and that I still enjoy using them.  Even drawing with old pencils to remember why I was once just as excited to get them as I am for the new ones.

I still can't wait for the new ones to get here.

But in the interim, I'm enjoying what I have.

I should remember that more often.  (Preferably, before I hit "add to cart".)

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.)

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. :)

On Filling Up Sketchbooks in November

So this happened the other day.

I'm still toddling along on my weekly theme schedule, trying to balance action creation with all the culling out I'm doing.  I'm reading an insane number of books, putting collage materials and art supplies in "to sell" boxes, and generally trying to give myself the space to breathe.

Somewhere in there, I thought I might also do NaNoWriMo this year, because I love the sense of community and shared goal, but as it's grown close to November 1, I've been feeling a lot of dread about it.  I write a lot.  Not just on writing weeks, either.  A couple years back, I finished NaNo in four days, if that says anything.

So when my friend Corinne posted the books she's made, and I went through my (totally insane pile of) sketchbooks the other night (there are, I kid you not, about fifty in the queue), I joked that maybe we should all try to fill a sketchbook in November instead.

And #NaSkeFiMo was born.

It's totally informal.  We have a facebook group.  The rules are essentially just PICK A BOOK and FILL THAT SUCKER IN A MONTH.

For some people, a 36 page Field Notes book will be a challenge; for others, one of those hundred-page monstrosities will be more in line.  I figure you know your limits and what will be a challenge for you.  Do that thing.  We'll cheerlead.

Moreover, you don't have to paint or do some kind of fine art.  Write.  Write songs.  Write conversation snippets you overhear and collage in your coffee receipts.  Scribble a map of your neighborhood or journal personally.  Stick down photos or selfies or random color charts.  Experiment.  Play.

It doesn't matter how the pages get filled, just that they get filled.

My plan (subject to change) is to dive headlong into a Stillman & Birn softcover.

I actually filled one of the ring-bound ones in October, so I know it's achievable.  And if I finish early, I may start a second one.  Either a Midori insert (maybe) or one of the kraft paper books, or one of my hand-bound sketchbooks...I don't want to decide too far ahead, but I do know that I won't be hesitant to make it two sketchbooks instead of one if I need to.

I guess my goal is just as many pages as possible, plus two.

Girl's gotta stretch, see.

If you're like me and you've got more sketchbook pages than you have time to use them, you're totally invited to play along.

Come on over and join up.

Let's make beautiful pages together. :)