This month’s sketch was a response to the comments made at our recent Zoom meeting about artists not using this sketchbook exchange opportunity to experiment with tools, techniques, etc.

As with most of my sketches, I began with a rough pencil drawing which I then inked with an 005 micron pen. Then to add the color I used water soluble pencils. That’s the experimental part. I’ve used these pencils before, but not in quite this way and I like the result, especially on this cold press watercolor paper that doesn’t take straight colored pencil well because of the rough texture of the paper.

Now I’m just trying to decide if I should ink the lettering. I’m leaning toward not, to fit in with the rest of the artists in the book, although normally I would ink letters like this.

Below is a picture of the book to date. We only have 3 more illustrations to add: March, April and May, and then we look ahead to round 2. But everyone agreed a break would be nice so I’m thinking of starting the next one In January of 2024.

I can’t wait to get my book back at the end of May!

During the holidays it has been a challenge to keep moving on the sketchbook project, but deadlines are motivating.  Here are images from the December and January sketchbooks:

So that brings us up to date with the Sketchbook Exchange Project. What will February bring? Ellen Blonder, who comes before me in these books, said it’s like Christmas when you get a new book every month and then it’s like finals week when you are approaching your mailing deadline and don’t have your sketch done. That describes the project very well.

The sketchbook exchange project proceeds apace. Each book as it comes along with more sketches in it seems to develop a personality of its own. It can be a bit of a challenge to find specimens that fit on the small pages of these little accordion books but this month I knew when I saw these seed pods littering the ground on my morning walk that I’d easily find one just the shape and size for this journal page and I also knew that they’d be perfect subjects for the ink drawing I wanted to do this month. Then I couldn’t help myself and added just a little colored pencil to highlight those fascinating wispy crispy structures curling about in the empty pods. I never had noticed those before.

Here’s an image showing the whole book to date:

I wonder what my book looks like now?

Here’s the sketch in progress.  I noticed the owner of the book had penciled in a rectangle behind her image so I thought I’d add a box behind mine.  This is a favorite technique of Lara Call Gastinger that I’d like to employ more often in my sketchbooks.  She does it with watercolor and it’s the work of a few minutes.  I did mine with colored pencil and it was the most time consuming part of this little sketch.

Here’s the finished sketch and below, the entire sequence to date.  The instructions for artists on this one indicated we could use one or 2 pages, our choice.  I opted for one page since I have had a LOT going on this month and want to get something done in my own sketchbook this week as well.

A big part of this project is encouraging people to work across the page boundaries to build continuity between images, so I thought I’d try it this month.   I’m moderately satisfied with that aspect of the work, but I hope that the next person to work in this book can integrate my image further with theirs. 

I have the November’s journal in my possession already and I can see that even with the same artists immediately preceding me, each book is taking on a character all its own that begins with the original illustration.  It’s fascinating to watch the images build upon one another as they march across the pages and to see how different the sketches are month to month from the same artists due to being inspired by that original image and subsequent entries.

The NCalSBA Sketchbook Exchange is officially underway and I’m working on the title page for my sketchbook, which will start traveling soon and then return to me containing entries from 10 other botanical artists next June.  Meanwhile, I will be adding one botanical sketch each month to a new sketchbook belonging to someone else that arrives in my mailbox before sending it on to the next artist.  

I made some discoveries about working in a little accordion journal that I post here:

•   The accordion book is hard to work on without adding some kind of support underneath whichever side is highest on the page spread you’re working on.  Originally, I ordered several different sketchbook options before settling on the Etchr model and you can see in the photo above that one of the other journals turned out to be just the right size for providing that support and it’s peeking out from under the left side of the Etchr sketchbook on my work table.  I also tried using a stack of 4×6 index cards and that worked well too because I could make very fine adjustments so that both sides were equal in height and therefore my working surface was flat.  This is very important if you’re working over the folds on 2-page spreads.    
•   I also noticed that the book was unwieldy and tended to unfold itself as I shifted it around until I thought to use the built-in elastic band to hold the rest of the accordion together while I was working.  You can see that band on the right side of the image.  Luckily, I was not planning to work in that area near the band today.  I will make a couple more bands from some 1/8″ elastic as that narrower elastic will not interfere as much while I work and bands that are not attached to the end boards will be easier to shift as I move around while working in an open page spread.   
•   I wanted to make that circle on my title page and it was bigger than the largest circle my handy circle-making template had to offer so I needed to use my compass.  I did NOT want to make even a very small needle hole in the middle of my paper where I was planning to put my echinacea blossom.  I have a roll of some white “artist’s” tape that features post-it note-like adhesive.   I love that stuff, I think I bought it at Utrecht years ago.  After testing carefully, I stacked 3 small pieces of the tape in the area where I needed to place the needle of my compass.  It worked perfectly.  The hole is in the tape stack, but the needle did not penetrate to the actual paper and the compass did not slip or skip.  You can also see a piece of that tape off to the top right on top of my mock-up page spread.
• The creamy hot press paper in this Etchr book is excellent for my Micron Pigma 005 Sepia pen plus colored pencil style of sketching.  Graphite pencil marks erase beautifully.  
•   Finally, I noticed…this is FUN!