Sketchy Business

You guys... 

I did it. 

For the first time in a good 8 years, I FILLED a sketchbook. And I didn't just fill it, I filled it with drawings and doodles and good stuff. No grocery lists. 65 pages of arty ridiculous random goodness. 

I tried to pick my top 10 favorite pages but I like them all, so here's fewer than 20 but more than 10. 

I regret nothing, title wise.

This dude was a preexisting condition. I don't know how many pages the sketchbook originally had because I painted over the cover, but when I pulled it off my shelf I did tear out a handful of grocery list type notes and pages with loads of eraser marks and faint lines. Dragon here stayed to guard my contact info though. 

Page One! I know I already wrote a post about this page but it was a solid start and I'm still happy with it.

The earlier pages (which I skipped over a lot of, apparently) just had the date and a note about the media used to do the page, as the book went on my notes got crazy and random. Like this page where I detail a weird dream I had.

I was gifted a set of drawing pencils and played around with those a bit trying to get back into it. I'm definitely a fan.

Snail friend crawling back into his shell makes this for me.

All the watercolors in this book I did with my crayola educational tray that has been knocking around for easily a decade. I know that's not exactly the epitome of fancy, but I wanted to force myself to practice mixing colors instead of always running to my hoard of watercolor tubes. Turns out I really like the results better when I mix myself and the tray is a lot less hassle to tote around.

There were a handful of pages that really tipped into proper "art journaling" as in, journaling happened. And a lot of song lyrics. I guess this is proof I *can* write in print. I just hate it usually.

An exercise posted in the mail pals instagram group daring us to stamp with weird items around the house. My husband didn't even ask when he saw me slathering paint on a corn tortilla and giggling in the corner of the room. He knows better by now.

Speaking of. Trying to draw my husband is like a 30 second drawing challenge. My sketching is getting faster, my man drawings are getting better.

One of my 30 days of pie and journaling pages. I absolutely love the way pilot precise pens bleed into the watercolors.

As it says, a lesson in lightening the fuck up. Meaning, I can get pretty caught up in trying to make things look realistic and forget that exaggerating is half the fun and that actually having fun is the other half.

Self portrait done in about 10 minutes. The whole point of trying to get back into art for me has been trying to make it something I can just do whenever instead of an intense ordeal. Mission Accomplished.

This might be my favorite page in the entire book.

And I caught the elusive Mr. Me long enough to sketch him.

The exercise in taking myself less seriously is never ending. So here's a quickie of the house lizard puppet.

And the back cover. 

So that's a sketchbook full. I have another one to start from my hoard of notebooks which might end up being a drawing/journal hybrid. 

Whooooo knooooows?

Pie Journaling

I see a lot of hashtag challenges floating around on instagram and I think they are all super dumb.

Ok, not really. I think anything that gives people the extra motivation they need to be creative is awesome, but I, personally, have never been a huge fan of oddly specific daily commitments. I already made a post babbling about doing things every day earlier this month, so I'll cut to the chase.

Things are dumb and hectic and stressful here in my little corner of the world, so I need something silly and something to look forward to doing daily. Some ding dang ME time. Which is why for the next 30 days I am committing to eating pie and journaling every day. I already journal every day, so really the commitment is to eating pie.

I'm inviting people to join me in this venture by using #30daysofpieandjournaling to tag your pies and pages on instagram (or wherever else you can tag shit, let's make this a thing!)

Literal pie is preferred, but any sort of self care works. A nice cup of coffee, sushi shaped into the form of a pie. Hell, go ahead and take your journal into a bubble bath (and bring your pie and coffee with).

I have a blueberry/raspberry pie to get through before I make another, but next on my pie list is either a shoo-fly pie or a meat and fenberry pie (or both at once). I also have intentions to make quiche, chocolate silk pie, perhaps a frittata or two, maybe even one of those hamburger tater-tot pies (if I can think of a non dairy substitute for cream of mushroom soup...). 

Anyway, this is my official announcement and fair warning that I'll be talking a lot about pie for the next month. It's really amazing we got this many blog posts in before something dumb like this happened...