I drew this at dinner tonight. This is the last sketch on the last page of my moleskine sketchbook. I threw some gray marker on it, and was surprised to learn that the flimsy, slick moleskine paper loves marker. I’ve been limiting these sketches to the usual pencil and smudge tool, but now I almost want a do-over.

Anyway, keeping in the spirit of my new year’s resolution, I’m completing things left incomplete. So instead of buying a new sketchbook, as I would normally do, I’m finding old, half-finished sketchbooks from the past and finishing them! I’ve found a sketchbook that my wife actually stitched together and bound from scratch and gave to me for a gift back a few years ago. It seems to be from 1999, mostly. Just to illustrate this, my daughter Lily, seen in the middle of the sketch above from this evening, is shown below how she appeared to me in 1999 in a sketch from my new/old (or is it old/new?) sketchbook.

I drew only in ink in those days, mostly fountain pen. These days I’m liking pencil: less fighting, more flow. So here’s a new sketch in the old book from this evening just to kick things off:

Joan put Strathmore drawing paper in this one, and I really like how it takes the 6b pencil. I have no idea whether anyone else finds any of this interesting, but it’s amusing to me, so hey…