So, new season, new sketchbook, new attitude about sketching. The color, and the pencil and the fixatif was all getting a little much for me. The portability of the clutch pencil and smudge stick were replaced by something a bit more laborius and fussy, so I was finding that sketching was becoming an ordeal, and as a result I was doing less of it. Just for fun, I made a couple of little ink-and-wash sketches at the end of my last book:

I enjoyed doing it and sort of liked how they turned out — just using a typical ball point pen and a light wash of sepia watercolor. I’ve since done a few more like this in the new book. The materials are easier to carry around: the waterbrush and a small tin with a dab of sepia color in it. I also got tired of all the half-finished sketches in the last book, so I’ve decided to finish every sketch I start, even if the subject has walked away, forcing me to finish from memory. A book full of finished little sketches would be a nice change of pace for me.

The book I’ve been using for the current and previous sketch book is called a “Hand Book“. It’s about the same size as a moleskine, but the paper is much better for watercolor washes. (The drawing at the top of the post was done in a moleskine with the thick paper — it took to ink like a dream but note the blotchy washes that actually bled through !! to the other side. I’ve never experienced paper doing that before with watercolor. I went out and bought another Hand Book after that.)

It’s late in the year for a new-year’s resolution, but this new approach kind of feels like that…