Sketch journal May 2023

May 2023 brought more color into the sketchbook. I used watercolors a lot.

And here, I made another template – round thumbnails! Why not? The exercise here was pairing colors. And then I felt like I needed to put four-letter words into the circles. Sort of an exhortation to spring weather.

I don’t recall exactly how I made this background. It involved large alphabet stamps and a gelli plate. When I got done with the background, I thought I could write something over top of it with a new nib – the Hokoro Fude. And use up some old ink that I bought in a prior life and still have. This page is just play, but it stops me in my tracks every time I come across it. It might be saying something about the power of layering. The white over the toned paper. Maybe apply backgrounds to a series of pages ahead of time, then draw on them?

This is another gelli plate experiment. Most often, I see acrylic paint used with the plate, but I wanted to try gouache. It worked okay, although the gouache beaded up significantly – I had little control. The results here remind me of the planet – blue, green and white.

This is a combination of ink and watercolor. Inspired by Pete Monaghan‘s paintings of vernacular architecture. I just love his style and his subject matter. I am so inspired by old houses around here, I think I could draw and paint some of them. It’s the variations in shading within the watercolor blocks that gets to me.

All of these pages are inspiring. I think I could do series based on each one of them.