Sketchbooks

I was just thinking about the sketchbooks I keep.

For the past decade, I've really favored plain black spiralbound hardcovers with cream drawing paper. I love them. The best is the Strathmore Field Drawing book. I usually stick to the 9x12 or 7x10 size.

When I crack open a fresh one, I first do the following:
1. Take a full-page Avery label and affix it to the inside covers. (Two for the 9x12, one cut in half for the 7x10). That is where the table of contents will live.
2. Write my contact information and some kind of threat for nonreturn on the back label.
3. Decorate the cover. If I don't designate one side over the other, I will repeatedly open it the wrong way and get all angry. This usually involves stickers.
4. Number as many of the pages as I can before I get bored (will continue as I fill it up).

Occasionally I deviate. Sometimes a hardbound book, one with stuff on the cover already, yadda yadda.

Anyway here are two of my favorite recent covers:






The book I am currently using already had a purdy cover. An impulse buy at B&N - chatting birdies! - but I kind of regret it now. The book is nice enough, but I really miss the spirals.. Being able to fold the book entirely around and have it stay open is key! I tend to flip back and forth a lot, and I fear that perforated pages will break off and fall out. Earlier this summer I started taping in all these old papers and things I'd been saving, and I ended up having to rip out a lot of pages at the back so the book would even close (spirals have a little more give). I do like the ribbon bookmark. This thing has way too many pages for me to finish it by the end of the year, and I kind of just want it over with. Clearly I need to get cracking on some drawing to get it out of my bag and onto my shelf.

The next little thing..

Bigfoot/sasquatchy dude!



He looks a bit happier than I meant for him to be, but meh.

There probably won't be any little things posted again in the next couple of weeks. Alice has come to absolute-crazy-make-stuff-crunchtime so I will be spending my time on that. Performances begin on the 29th, so there is not much time left! *sews furiously*

Little things, day two

I made a second angler, it's just a little bigger than the first one. They are friends. (Each is around 1x2")



I've been watching too much MonsterQuest on the History Channel, so here's a generic lake monster. Or, for you more dinosaurily-inclined folks, a plesiosaur or elasmosaur. She should be the first in a series of cryptids.



Whee!

Little things

Teeny needlefelted anglerfish!



About an inch wide.



TEEEEEETH

Another reorganization..

First, the sad news: my chubby little guy Olaf died about a month ago, on the day after my birthday. It was a huge bumout. In his old age, he got a little crazy and made a huge mess of our shared space. Plus, Alfie was Captain Climb and Destroy, so I had a bit of a challenge with my stuff between the two of them.

On 8/1 I moved almost all my furniture out. On 8/3 we rented a steam cleaner and I cleaned the hell out of the carpet. I had to use the upholstery attachment to really get it clean, because the draggy-box wasn't really doing a great job. The attachment even took out some of the old stains that were on the carpet when we moved in!

Then on Monday and Tuesday nights, I managed to move all the furniture back in a new, more spacious configuration. Some of my cheapo Target pieces are stackable, so I took advantage of that. Alfie can't climb very much now, and I moved all my sketchbooks up in the bookcase so she can't reach to rip out their spirals (SERIOUSLY!!). The only thing she's managed? Pulling all the SAQA Journal out of my magazine holders. I put them back. She takes them out.

PICTURES! Yeah, still a cluttered mess, but I can see surfaces now and I'm not afraid to drop things on the floor!









I got a new desk chair, too. It is TALL.


WHEEEEE

Oh, it has been done

The bag has been finished.



(In the interest of full disclosure, it was NOT finished when this picture was taken; however the addition of the lining did not change its outward appearance!)

It's so heavy now that it's done, too! We did a bit of a test run today and used it as a fourth shopping bag on our grocery trip today. Being that the bottom didn't fall off when it was full, I think it's going to last a while. Huzzah.