First Page on a New Sketchbook: Five New Sketching Tools I Use

I started my sketchbook number 165 on Monday. Usually, I draw "my most used current tools" on the first page. But Monday is a busy day, and my table was in such a state that finding my most-used tools was a task that would put me way out of the time allocated to my daily sketch. So I picked five odd / New sketching tools I've been playing with recently and drew they with some comments. Gave me a chance to think about what I like/dislike - win-win. 

Almost Green Hills of Pleasanton in Gouache

A wonderful trip to Pleasanton and a hike in the hills with sketching with friends. I had a plan to keep all my sketches of that day feeling like they were a series, and I think it almost worked. Gouache on all sorts of paper - one was a blotter page, I think - which is a shame - I like that sketch a lot.

Roses in a Jar

I drew roses last week in my vase and then came home from the mountains with a rose-in-a-pot (I now have my own rose - let's see how soon I will draw it and how long it will survive!) and with a bouquet of roses in a mason jar.I enjoyed drawing complex shapes and layers of these fragrant flowers as they aged and became simpler and simpler until it was time to let them go. 

My oak leaf hydrangea dry flower

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I am admiring my oak leaf hydrangea flower, and since this beautiful dry flower is still on my desk, it kept popping up in my sketchbook:

Sketchbook Experiments With Friends

One of the amazing things that happens when I go to the magical forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains is that I always get to make lots of experiments in my sketchbook! Now - I enjoy experiments any day, but they require time, space, a special playful mindset, and are best performed with a good company to laugh at some results and push others further. Plus lots of tea and snacks :)

And all of that was in abundance last week when  Suhita Shirodkar and I went to see our friends Gay Kraeger and Elyse Fairweather. Fantastic company and ideas of such different, amazing, and caring artists propelled me to a place where I covered a whole bunch of pages with marks and came home on the wings of many more things I want to try! Here are some of what I made and kept in my sketchbook after a day of work: