#makearteveryday

In September a chance conversation with a friend brought up the subject of sketchbooks.  Now, I love sketchbooks - I have bought many in the past but there was no guarantee that I would every use them!

When I have been taking various courses, I have always worked hard on my sketchbooks and even now I love looking back at them, igniting memories of past creations.    But left to my own devices, I am a lightweight and after a few pages, the sketchbook is put to one side and possibly never opened again.

I began to think about the reasons for this and concluded that it was definitely being faced with this large expanse of white paper waiting to be filled.  Now I know there are loads of ways of quickly covering a page to get rid of the bareness but you still have what looks like a very large space to be filled.   The solution I quickly realised was a smaller sketchbook so I went out and bought one A6 in size thinking that I can always go up to A5 if I found this too restricting.

So on 25 September I began and achieved an entry for everyday until yesterday, 31 October.  I have decided to have a break as it does take up time everyday and I have found other projects have suffered and as Christmas approaches I have other creations to get started on.

Here are the pages so far with a bit more detail of their composition.

L to R: Gelli printed with stamps; gelli printed with added pen; pen sketch with watercolour; collage of gelli printed deli paper; pen sketch with watercolour; map with collaged letters; gelli print with pen zentangles; dictionary page with hand writing; gelli print with printed page and machine stitching; gelli print with leaves and collaged letters; paint drips with added drawn lines; paint sponged background with poem.

L to R: Gelli printed paper with added gel pen lines; gelli printed background with collaged letters; collage of gelli printed paper; pen sketch with pencil; pen drawings with added paint; collage of magazine paper and collage letters; zentangles in pen; printed background with wax rubbing and pen lines; collage of gelli printed paper; gelli printed paper; washi tape collage; colour pen zentangles;

L to R:  Gelli printed paper with collage letters on tag; gelli printed paper; collage of letters and paper on printed background; pen drawing with watercolour; waterstained paper and fabric with stitching; pen drawing on enhanced photo; collage of found items; collage of found items; beach found paper and ribbon with stitching.

L to R:  Pen lines and shapes with wax rubbing and soluble crayons; collage of inked paper with white gel lines; map with paper cut arrows; wax rubbing with pen lines; ink zentangle with water colour; painted  and printed background with coloured pencil detail.

I have learnt so much while doing this and feel I have become more confident and more importantly, far more relaxed while working in a sketchbook.   During this process I bought Shelley Rhodes's Sketchbook Explorations and having read the book cover to cover, I was so inspired that I feel this book is the main reason for freeing me up.   There are several of the later pages that were directly inspired by this book.

Although I will be taking a break for a while, if I find myself with nothing to do I will  definitely return to my little book.  And looking to the future, I am already feeling inspired enough from some of the pages to start a bigger sketchbook which will no doubt be seaside themed as that is where I find most of my inspiration.