It’s a whole new adventure, and I’m not quite sure how or why it happened, but I appear to have set up my own YouTube channel.
My channel home page on YouTube
I’m in the process of uploading my Instagram short videos, and yesterday I made a video on starting a new sketchbook, which you can see here.
This one is a little square (ish) concertina folded sketchbook, with seven pages each side, which I’ve filled with collaged illustrations and found poetry cut from an old anthology.
I’ve made it in preparation for a forthcoming course in my Teachable school on making your own sketchbooks (yes?), and very enjoyable it’s been too.
I really like the way these simple folded sketchbooks become circular, where the end is also the beginning, so I’ve created this one on the theme of day and night revolving around each other.
If you saw the beginning of this little book, here’s how it turned out (ignore all the paint on my fingers, it’ll come off eventually):
mixed media sketchbook with found poetry
The text comes from various early twentieth-century poems and I’ve just cut out and rearranged the lines and phrases to create new poems.
Day and Night title pageDay, pages 2 & 3Day, pages 4 & 5Day, pages 6 & 7Night, title pageNight, pages 2 &3Night, pages 4 & 5Night, pages 6 & 7
Returning to the subject of YouTube, I’ll be keeping teaching and online courses on Teachable but I don’t mind sharing occasional processes and techniques on my YouTube channel.
So my next question is, what would you like to see?
I’ve been working on this sketchbook for a few weeks now, finding homes for all the tiny samples and scraps of painted paper and fabrics. At the same time I’m in the process of preparing to write a new course on mixed media/collage in sketchbooks, and I find it helps to actually make the thing you intend to teach.
handmade sketchbook, 9.5″ x 6.5″
I made the very simple sketchbook, using cartridge paper and some handmade cotton rag paper – it’s just sheets of paper stacked, folded in half, and stitched along the spine. The wrap around cover is cotton rag paper and it ties with some hand-dyed cotton tape that wraps around the button. Mixed media sketchbooks often become quite bulky because of all the inserts and layers, so it helps to bundle it up like this.
Sketchbooks are sometimes regarded as preparation for something larger, but I tend to see them as valuable and inspirational objects in themselves. I see them as a place to collect abstract thoughts in the form of shape and colour, and also as a place to try different colour combinations and design elements. Some of the designs in this book may or may not become larger works, and if they don’t then it’s enough to have them as they are in the sketchbook.
Here’s a quick flip-through. The pages are about 9″ x 6″ ish:
mixed media sketchbook pages
And a closer look (details are in the captions beneath the image):
strips of painted collage papers simple mark-making with thread on layered fabric scraps (4″ square)extra fold-out page
I don’t often write in sketchbooks like this one, but I do sometimes like to add a few words of text. I have an old poetry anthology that I cut up to make found poems. I know some people have strong feelings about cutting up books, but I only ever use very old books that have missing or damaged pages. The text serves to remind me of what I was thinking when I made the image, and sometimes it might also suggest the title of a larger work.
stitched sample with found poemcollage with painted papers and textstitched sample (about 5″ square) with simple mark-making
I like the way samples in different media can support and inform each other. The top sample on the page below was made by collecting and layering fabric scraps, and then the lower image is a collage inspired by the stitched sample.
from stitch to collageinside back cover, handmade foam stamps and simple drawn grid
As I’m currently taking a temporary break from Instagram, I have a bit more time to focus on structuring the new course. It generally takes a month or more to put one together and I’m still at the thinking-it-through stage, so there’s a fair way to go. But watch this space.
The third Monday in January (2025) is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s nonsense, of course (though I guess some of you in the US may not be in agreement right now…) The concept apparently was invented by a travel company in 2005, to sell more holidays, and only applies to the northern hemisphere because of the cold weather and the short daylight hours here. As you know, I love the winter and the chilly, grey, short days. I also like January, blue, and Mondays, so I’m just here today to disprove the theory. I hope you haven’t fallen for the marketing/sales hype that’s trying to persuade you to feel miserable today. You might want to look away at this point if you don’t like blue, though.
Today’s daily stitching had to be blue, if only to justify the title of this post.
20th January daily stitching
And a closer look:
lifetime (cross stitches) piling up – 🎶 earworm by Talking Heads, ‘Lifetime Piling Up’
Recently I’ve been gathering together some little zero waste samples that I put together last year. These are just tiny scraps of fabric laid on a foundation, covered in a sheer fabric, and randomly (or purposefully) stitched. I thought it might be nice to compile them into a mixed media sketchbook. More on this later.
zero waste sketchbook page
I’m doing zero waste with collage papers too, using all the tiny scraps and strips of painted papers, letting the stitched samples and collage elements begin a little conversation.
stitch on the left, painting and collage on the right
It’s all very intuitive and kinaesthetic. The hands start doing something with fabric or thread or paper, and the brain eventually gets interested enough to join in. You have to start doing the work in order to do the work.
There are a few more basted samples that need stitching.
zero waste samples using selvedges and hand-dyed scrapsabout 8″ square, layered scraps and sheer fabrics, ready for stitching
And a box of glorious blue threads vying for attention.
🎶 blue, blue, electric blue 🎶 earworm by David Bowie, ‘Sound and Vision’
So when I say ‘wishing you a Blue Monday’, I mean it in the happiest way possible.
This one is A4 size, and it’s the sketchbook I’m using for the Laura Horn Modern Mixed Media course. So far the course content is quite different in style from what I would normally produce, but there are some interesting techniques that I might be able to adapt into some kind of landscape work. Laura is very, very good at what she does, and she demonstrates the techniques expertly.
The cover for this one is mostly layered sheer fabrics – hand-dyed silk organza, chiffon and nylon tulle, on a plain calico base. I drew some loose scribbly marks and lines on the calico first, which you can just about see under the surface, and then layered the sheers over the top to form a kind of landscape.
sketchbook, front cover
The scrap of poetry on the front cover, held in place under the top layer of nylon chiffon, is from ‘Home Thoughts in Laventie’ by Edward Wyndham Tennant.
The back is a little more simple, but broadly the same technique:
sketchbook back cover
Sheer fabrics are notoriously difficult to photograph, so some of the colours are not quite right here – textiles always look so much better in person, in any case. This detail of the back cover shows some hand-painted builder’s scrim under the top layer of chiffon.
back cover, detailfront cover, detail
As usual, I’ve made a wrap-around slip cover, so the inside covers do double duty as pockets.
inside front cover
The Modern Mixed Media course so far has been quite heavily focused on ‘botanicals’, which I’ve struggled to render on paper without it looking like someone else’s work. The best I’ve been able to do so far is a kind of scribbly variation, which I quite like.
scribbly botanicals, pen and ink/watercolour
I’m not terrifically impressed by the paper in this sketchbook, which is a Fabriano watercolour 200 gsm. The paper has a very prominent texture, which I find distracting. You can see it particularly clearly on this page:
sketchbook page
I’ve taken to collaging the pages before adding any paint, which I’m finding easier to handle.
sketchbook page, collaged with vintage papers
This page is ready for something, though I don’t know what yet. I could easily say the same about myself, most days. Let’s see what the rest of the week brings.
I’ve been having a tidy-up in my workroom and trying to round up All the Sketchbooks. Turns out there are a few more than I thought.
some sketchbooks
Some are complete, some are nearly complete, and some are completely empty. I do like a well-dressed sketchbook, so you know what’s going to happen next.
I have a little 6″ square Seawhite sketchbook (140 gsm cartridge paper) where I put paint scraps – leftover paint from another project, not enough for a new thing but too much to pour away. Then I go back in and add marks/other media, with no real plan. However hard I try to keep each sketchbook to a theme, they always end up being a fairly random collection of colours and marks.
6″ mark-making sketchbook
The cover for this one is made from hand-dyed silk organza and dress net, roughly cut into circles and rings, layered onto some plain calico. Then I’ve covered it with very sheer nylon chiffon and stitched some simple lines and marks over the surface to hold it all together. I’m very bad at stitching text so I’ve sandwiched a small piece of handwritten card on the spine between the chiffon and some net.
If anyone’s interested in the contents, here are a few pages showing how simple it can be:
watercolour and acrylic ink with penwatercolour with 8B pencil sketchexploring colour and patterns
I recently got some Roman Szmal watercolours to try, just a starter set of five, and I really like the Caput Mortuum and Aquarius Green:
Roman Szmal caput mortuum and Aquarius green with fine black and white pens
Mostly this book (so far) consists of various rings and circles, hence the design on the cover.
watercolours with walnut ink, marks made with cotton bud (q-tip) and cocktail stickwatercolour with Derwent drawing pencils
There are lots more books needing covers, so there’s more than enough here to keep me busy over the coming months. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, do you have long/ongoing projects planned for the coming winter?
Quite a few links in this post; I hope they all work.
Firstly, a huge thank you to Fiona, who told me about the free online Sketchbook Revival course hosted by the wonderful Karen Abend. I’ve been following along, and it really has been an exciting and inspiring two weeks. If you missed it, I think the classes are still available for another couple of weeks or so. And another huge thank you must go to all the amazing artists who so generously shared their time, experience, and processes.
I kept a sketchbook (more of a notebook, really) to remind me of the content, and I had a go at most of the projects – some more successfully than others, but then you generally learn more from your ‘bad’ art. I stayed pretty close to the techniques and images presented, but made enough notes to be able to attempt something similar in my own style, and I think I’m still learning what that is. Shown here are just a few examples; this particular book is actually full-to-bursting now.
Sketchbook Revival 2024 notebook, front cover
I added pockets to the notebook so I can write extra notes to myself. I have a lot of sketchbooks, most of them constantly in progress and nowhere close to being finished, and I often struggle to find enough time to use them meaningfully.
As Karen Abend so wisely says in the last session, however passionate you might be about your creative practice, it can be very difficult to be consistent with it, and it’s true – life gets busy; often I don’t know what to do in the sketchbook so I end up not doing anything in it; and then there’s the potentially overwhelming problem of the inner critic and imposter syndrome. After these two weeks of brilliant classes, I’m more determined to maintain a daily sketchbook practice. There are lots of mixed media ideas I want to explore, and I can now promise myself that I will find the time for it.
inside back cover, pocket (envelope) for notes to self
Usually these days my drawing consists of abstract mark-making, and it’s been a while since I’ve drawn ‘things’ that can be recognised as themselves, although lately I do seem to be drawn to flowers and leaves. A few of the techniques demonstrated in the classes are somewhere between abstract and realistic. I really enjoyed this poppy meadow session, hosted by Tamara Laporte:
watercolour poppy meadow
There was mark-making by Joy Ting, using twigs as drawing tools – I already do this quite often myself, and it’s been reassuring to see and hear artists voicing my own thoughts about processes, using similar techniques.
trees drawn with sticks dipped in walnut ink and acrylic ink
There was a bit of mixed media collage, with Lynissa Hayes:
mixed media collage page
And some proper drawing – upside-down thumbnails hosted by Linda Germain:
upside down thumbnails (left) and how to draw anything (right)
The right hand page shows the exercise presented by the utterly brilliant Suhita Shirodkar, who demonstrates how to tackle a complex street scene, featuring architecture and crowds, in pen and watercolour. This one was a bit out of my comfort zone – not something I would even think about drawing, usually – but she makes it very accessible and it was actually a lot of fun.
And then there were mixed media pockets and tip-ins (not a term I’ve come across before; from the context it seems to be an extra page that you stick into a journal or sketchbook) hosted by Roben-Marie Smith, and also really enjoyable.
There’s a LOT more in the course than the handful of examples I’ve given here – there are more than thirty sessions altogether. I learned a lot, had lots of fun, and am immensely grateful to all the artists who took part in this.
Next up, I’m doing a mixed media class with Laura Horn, and am looking forward to getting stuck in. Maybe it’s something about the autumn that makes me want to go back to school. It’s probably all those Septembers as a child, with a pencil case full of new pens…
In my last post I mentioned the online course I was doing with Suzanne Allard, and that bright florals weren’t really my thing. Figurative painting – as in proper ‘doing a painting’ of an object, like an artist – isn’t really my thing either, for that matter. I’m usually happier with needle and thread and abstract marks.
And then I said to myself, who doesn’t like flowers? I had a go at some flowers with collage, which I find more approachable than painting. What I like about collage is that you can take some shapes and colours and move them around on the page before committing to anything permanent.
collaged flowers, mixed media
Like I said, flowers aren’t my thing, bright colours aren’t my thing, etc etc. And what do you know, I quite like it.
flower collage, mixed media
What are sketchbooks for if not to try stuff and have some fun?
I had a little go at painting leaves with a watercolour sword brush. Definitely need more practice with that, but it’s a really lovely brush.
watercolour with sword brush
And I really like the way the scrap of paper forming the centre of one of these flowers just happens to have the word ‘blooming’ on it.
blooming
My desk is looking a little chaotic, but I am having some serious fun here.
paper everywherewatercolour with Faber Castell Pitt pen
If you’ve ordered threads and/or fabrics (thank you), they’re on their way. Rummaging in the stationery cupboard, walking to the post office, and playing in a sketchbook or three have brought me to a very happy place indeed this week.
It’s been a difficult few weeks and I needed a couple of days down time, so I’ve taken refuge in some no-pressure sketchbook work.
coloured pencil on acrylic/ink background
I’ve just started Suzanne Allard’s online course 31 Bright and Fun Sketchbook Paintings. I really like Suzanne’s calm and confident teaching style, and I also like seeing how other artists approach their work. The bright florals are not completely my thing but there are plenty of inspiring ideas and techniques to try, and it’s nice to sit back and watch someone else talk you through their approach to their art. And there’s always something new to learn.
My own sketchbook pages are nothing like the ones in the course, but I’ve been trying some of the layering techniques just for the fun of it.
sketchbook pagepen and Inktense crayon on acrylic ink background
Without really meaning to, I often find that my sketchbook pages are full of marks that could feasibly become stitches. Not really surprising, given that drawn marks are mainly dots and lines.
One of the things I’ve discovered is that I no longer enjoy using acrylic paints. The ecological aspect has bothered me for some time (as in acrylic=plastic) but having had a little play with them again I find that I really don’t like the slightly plasticky sheen.
sketchbook page background, gesso/acrylic
Layering or mixing acrylics with gesso makes them less shiny/glossy/plasticky. In the spirit of using what I’ve got, I’ll probably use my existing supply and then not replace them.
I do, however, like acrylic inks – also plastic, but I’m guessing not quite so bad as the paint. I like the inks because they behave like watercolour but they’re not water-soluble once they’re dry so you can easily go over them with other media without disturbing the base layer.
sketchbook background page: gesso and acrylic ink
The problem I have with layered backgrounds is that I end up really liking the base layer as it is and I don’t really want to add anything else on top of it. I’ve therefore ended up with a sketchbook full of nice backgrounds, which is also fine I guess.
I’ve had a little tinker in the watercolour sketchbooks as well.
watercolour mini-sketches
I used low-tack masking tape to divide an A4 page into postcard-sized areas. The marks on the top two were made by dipping a stick in walnut ink and drawing on wet paint.
I’m resolving to make more time for this as it’s something I really enjoy, and besides all work and no play etc. Wishing you an equally playful and creative weekend.
I’m feeling settled enough in our new home to think about starting some new work, and I’ve made a start in a spiral bound square sketchbook that I’ve had for a little while. Sometimes these things only speak to you when they’re ready.
Of course I had to make a cover for it, as I do for most of my sketchbooks. I find it helps to illuminate some of the themes, as well as providing a little extra protection for the contents.
The cover wraps around the spiral binding and meets itself on the front. It’s not my usual colour palette:
wraparound cover for square sketchbook
I’m using a Two Rivers plein air pocket sketchbook, which has alternating pages of watercolour paper and cartridge paper. The pages are about 7.5″ square, so a nice manageable size.
sketchbook cover
I like pockets in sketchbooks. Actually I like pockets full stop. In my youth I went through a phase of wearing men’s vintage jackets purely because of the number and quantity of pockets, which utterly delighted me. I would keep finding extra hidden pockets all over the garment, inside and out. We no longer say the word pockets in our house. We always say pocketses, a la Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.
pocketses are great
I’ve been using the watercolour-paper pages for direct painting, and the cartridge-paper pages for collaging.
So far it’s all very loose and sketchy, blending colours, shapes and words. I’m cutting the words from an old poetry anthology to create found poems, which is helping to navigate the direction.
ink and watercolour on TwoRivers watercolour paper
I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be yet, or where it might be going, but between us (me and the work) we will find a path. Or maybe this is enough. I think it’s leading somewhere, as most things do.
sketchbook page: be prepared
Some of it is already looking like textile work.
probably the beginnings of a quilt
This page is just ink on wet paper with salt sprinkled over it. I enjoy the unpredictability of this kind of work. Play, really.
ink with salt
It’s a voyage of discovery as always, exactly like life. Travelling through time, we never know what will happen next. And yet, on we go.
Imposter Syndrome, inner critic, Captain Failure, whatever you call it – I feel as if I finally understand it, and this understanding has truly changed my life. It’s one of the many amazing things I’m learning from the incredible Stacie Bloomfield and her Leverage Your Art online course.
Having been beaten down countless times (for decades) by the inner critic’s ‘you’re not good enough’ mantra, I now understand it for what it is. It’s just a part of my brain that doesn’t like change and is frightened by risk-taking. It comes up with what it thinks are valid reasons to prevent my doing something that doesn’t feel safe.
In a real life-or-death situation that’s immensely useful, and the inner critic is actually your greatest protector if it tells you that you really shouldn’t jump out of a tenth floor window. The problem is that the inner critic can’t always tell the difference between a genuine life-threatening change and a personal challenge, so it tells you the same limiting things over and over again until you can no longer tell the difference either. It seems to me that you and the inner critic grow together and you just get used to not questioning its advice.
I’ve nearly finished the right-brain business plan, and am including the inner critic just so I don’t forget that sometimes it tells me things that may not be true.
The inner critic: actually my greatest protector who doesn’t like to admit that they are sometimes wrong
Underneath all of those life-limiting nonsense messages is the truth – that somewhere in there, a part of your brain is afraid that you will die if you change. You can’t grow if you don’t take occasional considered risks. It’s not natural to stand still or stay the same. Everything changes eventually.
So finally I’m recognising that messages like ‘you don’t deserve this’ and ‘this will never work’ are just really, really silly.
