#8 Sketch Book: Draw 2012

One of my goals for the year was to fill a sketch book. After my goal review a few weeks ago I decided to buckle down and start. I filled the first half of my hand-made sketch book in one night, and decided to keep with the momentum and make it a two-day project and fill the second half the next day. 

Whenever I show this book to anyone, or look through it myself, it fills me with joy and an awesome sense of accomplishment. 

I just have to say how awesome it feels to create something, use a talent, and have a finished product as an end result. 

Most of these drawings are my attempts to recreate other people's artwork. I wanted to have hard copies of beautiful things, ideas, humor, and inspiration that I have found (and saved) all around the internet. Some of these are not that great, but others turned out awesome. 

This was a great exercise to get back in the flow of pen and ink drawing, and creating in general. The first three were drawn from life, and the rest were drawn from looking at references on my computer. (You can tell that it took me a few drawings to remember how to effectively use pen and ink as a medium.)

I decided to include all the pages (even the bad drawings) to show the full range of the results, and to give an honest representation of the outcome. Some subject matter doesn't translate very well into pen and ink drawings, and some subject matter I'm just not that good at drawing either way.

With pen and ink you also have to learn when to stop and let it be finished before you ruin it. With no way to erase a line, you have to think out your drawing before you start, and when you do put your pen to paper, you have to really commit to the mark you are about to make. When you make a mistake you chalk it up to a learning experience and try to not make it again on the next page. I also enjoyed the fast pace of doing one drawing right after another and finishing the book in two days. 

It is also a learning experience trying to translate a painting or three-dimensional piece that has shades and values, into a pen and ink drawing with stark black and white. You have to decide what to leave out, what to simplify, and what to try to emulate by hatching or cross hatching to imitate the gradual value changes present in the original. 

I would like to add a second layer to this project by going back and adding color to some (or all) of the drawings and gilding the pages. We shall see!

Enjoy!

Title page

The inspiration. I love her heart-balloon-flower.

Amen!
The inspiration.

Needs color.
The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.
The title just makes me laugh and laugh.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.
Needs color.

The inspiration.

Really needs color.

The inspiration.

My favorite.
The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

My Lullabelle. 

The inspiration.

The inspiration.

Fin.
The inspiration.

My hand-bound sketch book made on my first day of Book Arts in college.

What do you think? Favorites?