We’re nearing the end of the “30 Days of Sketchbook Joy” challenge! I have been spending time every day working on something in my sketchbook, but sometimes I only do part of a page on one day and finish it the next. One of the days, I just finished the previous day’s page and never started the next one, so I’m technically off by a day. I’ll probably continue until I have 30 finished pages, then call it done. Here’s what I have since last time:
Day 22: Dramatic Sky
Sometimes the prompts that sound the most promising and feel the most inspiring end up being… duds! I love dramatic skies and was excited at the prospect of creating some, but when it came time to do it, I just drew a blank…
I started by dividing my page in half, so I’d have two tries on the same page. I started with a base layer of watercolor, using different colors and techniques. Then, after it dried, I went back to them and didn’t know what to do next. I just needed to do something, so I did, but I’m not thrilled with how these turned out. That’s how it goes sometimes!
For the top one, I drew with a dip pen, then added some touches of color to the house and tree… Not much to say about that—just messy doodles in pen representing a stormy sky.
The second one, I’d tried to use salt in the watercolor for texture, but it didn’t work as well as planned. That technique is always a bit hit or miss. Sometimes it’s amazing, and sometimes it’s very subtle. So many factors involved, such as the paint you’re using, the paper, the amount of water, and the timing of application.
Anyway, this time the result was very subtle. Disappointed with my dip-pen attempt and probably just wanting to be done with it, I decided to go for something simple for the second one. I used a black water-soluble crayon, drawing crude cloud shapes and then roughly going over them with a wet brush to smudge but not fully dissolve. I actually do like this, in a way. I think this effect can be nice, in the right situation. It has a picture-book vibe that I enjoy. Of the two skies, I prefer this one.
(I also added a little green and brown water-crayon to the ground under the sky.)
Day 23: Pen and Ink
This is another prompt that should have been a good one for me, but for whatever reason turned out “blah”. I like using pen and ink with watercolor, but I had no idea what to paint/draw, so I went back to the inspiration cards (covered in previous blog entries).
I drew these:
- Desert, Arctic, or Tropical
- Ketchup & Mustard colors
The colors guided me to choose “desert” for my subject. Then I drew from my personal deck of cards for an additional challenge: “Use drops of clean water to create texture.”
As it happens, I forgot about the water drop texture element of the challenge until the paint was already drying, which makes it harder to do. I still tried, but it wasn’t as effective as it could have been.
Fortunately, a recent page in my sketchbook (the page of textures) had taught me that some of my markers react really well with water drops, so I added orange marker over my sun, then dropped lots of water on top. I think the effect is pretty cool!
Materials used: pencil (rough sketch), watercolor and Inktense pencil, marker (sun), and dip pen/raw sienna ink (to meet the original thematic challenge).
It’ll never be one my favorite things I’ve ever drawn/painted, but I guess it was something to do, and it met the day’s challenge.
Day 24: Google Maps
The prompt was to use Google Maps Street View to find an inspiration image (landscape or cityscape) to sketch. I’d never heard of this before, but it’s pretty neat, and I’ll probably use the idea again. You can go totally random, you can look for images of areas you’re already familiar with, or you can just keep browsing until you find something that you like.
I ended up choosing a submitted photo (not one taken from the road) of a place near Donald’s family home in Sweden.
I didn’t try to copy it closely, but just looked at it for a couple of minutes, then went off to my craft room and started sketching from memory.
I used pencil to sketch rough shapes, then added watercolor and color pencil.
I tend to add ink of some sort (either dip pen or a Pilot Vision style pen), but this time I left it with just color pencil. It does have a different feel this way—probably better, sometimes. I’m not thrilled with the trees on the right, but wasn’t sure what to do with it, so just left it that way. I’m not dissatisfied with it, as a whole, but if I did it again, I’d add more and different textures to the plants in the foreground.
Day 25: Lavender
This day’s prompt was “draw on location”, but I didn’t want to do that, so I turned to my trusty cards again:
- Spooky
- Lavender
- Make it Vintage-Inspired
- Go Heavy on Detail
I decided to take “spooky” in a more cartoony direction and painted some ghost shapes (including a cat and dog) in lavender watercolor, then left it to dry. (I’d been finishing up the previous day’s start, probably, and was tired or out of time—or both!)
The next evening, I used a pen to doodle scenes around the ghosts, trying to be a little bit vintage-inspired in my choices and including lots of details.
There are some issues and things that could have been better with a little more planning, but I actually had a lot of fun with this, in the doodling phase.
I’d consider doing something like this again, for sure!
Day 26: Wildflower Study
This day’s prompt was “Wildflower Study”, but again, I wasn’t in the mood for that. I had just received a new box of paint (courtesy of Bing rewards points) and wanted to give that a try, instead.
The paints are “Boku-Undo Japanesque Colour” (marked “Pale Black TAN”). I already had a couple of their sets and enjoyed them. I don’t actually know exactly what they are or are intended for, but you can use them like a watercolor—kind of like the Kuretake Gansai Tambi paints. They pack a lot of powerful color and are fun to use. Whereas the other sets I own tend to be very dark unless heavily diluted with water, this one is more pastel.
(I just read that this company is based in Nara, Japan, which is the place where they have those incredibly tame deer that you can walk right up to and pet. Neat!)
So, I decided to let the cards direct me—and funnily enough, the first one I drew was “Bloom”, which is pretty darn close to the scheduled topic of “Wildflower Study”. I took it in a different direction, though. I decided to skip the color card, because I wanted to use all the colors in the new set. The wildcard suggested using two subjects, so I drew another card: Happy & Bloom.
The image that immediately came to me was kind of goofy, but so what?
I painted a very simplified field of flowers and let it dry:
Next day, it was time to doodle happy faces on my flowers. I made a couple of them cats/lions, just because.
Hey, it was fun to do! (And I just might do it again…)
Day 27: Food Packaging
I considered ignoring this prompt, too, or maybe drawing fantasy food (i.e. not using a reference photo or “drawing from life”). I had visions of canned sardines and pickled onions and other weird (to me) food that I think looks neat but would never actually want to eat. But then I thought about drawing a bag of Bilar…
“Bilar” means “cars” in Swedish, and it’s Donald’s favorite Swedish candy. They’re supposed to be shaped like cars. Supposed to be. Okay, they kind of are, but it’s a bit impressionistic, in my opinion.
I drew an exceptionally two-dimensional-looking sketch of a bag of “car candy”, colored in with watercolor, color pencil, and acrylic pen—and outlined with ink pen. Here it is with the actual bag of candy:
It does look curiously flat, but I… don’t care. Realism is not my strong suit! At least I tried!
Just a few more days to go!
