My Hiatus Pt.1 'Two girls and a dog having a picnic'

i have scanned! alexander was asleep and let me put him down for long enough to scan a few bits from my sketchbook. i'm so tired, i should have taken the opportunity to sleep but i felt an overwhelming desire to post something. of course he 'waah lahhed' before i finished and he is now across me feeding hence the one-handed-sorry-about-lack-of-capital-letters post! i don't know whether to put all the sketches i've done since alexander was born into one post or to split them. one thing i can say is that they are really not brilliant. i get this desire to draw but my mind is so much on alexander, especially when we are out, that i don't focus on the sketch. i'm not someone who is able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time and that applies to drawing too. even the loosest, simplest stuff i do like the continuous line drawings i have to put 100% concentration into!

well, here is what i did yesterday in the park. i go to the park nearly every day. this was right before alexander woke up in his pram and before a random jamaican guy tried to get my number.

i have for a while been noticing that some people when they sketch combine black pens of various nib widths. i really like this as it gives something similar to the line variation you achieve with a dip pen and so is an out and about or baby friendly alternative to a dip pen! i was a bit scared about doing this, i've never really known what to do with my 'M' pitt pen. but i've tried it here and i really think it has turned out okay. i have also gone back to my sketching roots and used my beloved grey and vanilla promarkers. they are the first colours i ever used and also really what got me into sketching regularly. it is my favourite way of sketching to just have one or two simple colours and a lot of white space. i don't know whether this sketch means i have gone back to square one though! i hope not!

Equipment: Sakura Pigma Micron 01, Pitt 'M', Promarkers Cool Grey 2 & Vanilla

Watercolours, dip pen, Seawhites sketchbook

I've been getting back into using watercolours lately. The 'colour' theme for April at Creative Every Day has made me think about using new, stronger colours and, as much as I love Promarkers, I don't really like using the stronger colours in their range as I just find they swamp the illustration a bit. Plus, I really can't afford to buy any more of them! So I've had these watercolours out. But I haven't had a lot of success with them in the sketchbook I'm using at the moment. They go fluffy. They lose all their lovely translucent wateriness. Also, I want to use the dip pen at the moment and this sketchbook most definitely won't have any of that dip pen business. So I dug out a Seawhites sketchbook that is only about 2/3 full. I was using it for a project and for an illustration class I did so I never finished it.

So I was really just trying out how the watercolours would turn out on this Seawhites sketchbook (I already knew that it is very happy to have the pen and ink on it). I started drawing the nearest colourful thing to me, this Chapstick tin.

I've been thinking about converting this tin into a little tin for watercolours as I have a couple of pans with no home and some tubes of Sennelier colous which I would much prefer to have in a tin. Apparently you can just squeeze them into an empty pan and let them dry overnight. Now I just need to get some cheap empty pans.

The verdict is that the Seawhites sketchbook is really good for dip pen and watercolours. Also, it is really cheap compared to a lot of sketchbooks. I definitely recommend it. I think I paid £5.99 for it at Cass Arts -  I wish Cass would open a store in Bristol! The only minor thing is that it doesn't flatten down in the way that Moleskines and some other sketchbooks do. I mean, it does flatten but it isn't quite so flexible.  It says in it's blurb though that it is 'sized for extra wet-strength' and it really is because I like using a lot of water! I will try it with some ink washes next.