Building a Loose Leaf Sketchbook (for my camera bag)

http://apimageo.tumblr.com/post/172777515721/building-a-loose-leaf-sketchbook-for-my-camera

I'm not only revitalizing this blog. I always liked the idea of a behind the scenes place to post ideas and works in progress stuff, and I originally felt tumblr was a better place to do that than in here. So there is stuff going on over there occasionally but it will be reposted here as a embedded item

INKtober and now for something completely different

October seems to be the month for Sketching, flickr are running INKtober (so expect my photofeed there to suddenly become drawings), the YouTube SketchBookSkool are running monthly sketching themes on Instagram (some background on @oz_endless_summer) and pastel artist Marla Baggetta is also recommending a month long sketchbook challenge.

Given that I was unable to keep up a year long daily sketch routine last year I figured I should at least give a one month of drawing & posting a reasonable chance. So expect less photos and more drawings, wish me luck and get drawing yourself.

The Challenges of Watercolours at the Beach

I now have a very comfy beach chair that is perfect to sit and do some sketching at the beach. I also have a nice little backpack that holds my art gear. So I should have little trouble making decent sketches. However there are two challenges wind & sand that introduce a fair bit of stress to the watercolour sketching process.
Using my wet/watercolour portable pallette on the beach is a like a magnet for sand. The mixing areas in particular have areas of wet paint being mixed and any small sand grains tend to collect here. The sketch book itself often collects a lots of sand on the damp areas and the little grains tend to suck in the surrounding moisture and pigments creating a speckled effect (nice for foliage and sand but not attractive in the flat wash of sky). If I put the sketch book down on the beach to dry … sand everywhere.

However it is the wind even just a brisk breeze that plays more havoc. It blows around more sand and also pulls at the pages of my sketch book )one sketch book was pretty much unbound on this trip so it is now a lot of loose pages. Also the wind makes it hard to balance my portable paint pallette, brushes and water
There are a couple of  good solution to windy days, that I discovered, and relied on, on my recent trip. The first is big bulldog clips and/or masking tape. to hold my sketch book securely on my drawing board. The second is my set of Derwent Inktense Blocks which I use little like a “dry” pallette. Using a water brush I can just pick up the paint I need from the blocks and essentially leave the blocks dry (and less sand attracting). I tend to then mix the colours on the sketchbook page and I’m pleased with the results.

Suddenly Instagram is beginning to look like my sketch books

I’m the first to admit I haven’t figured out the appeal of Instagram, other than its easy of use and a way fast disposal of images (short viewing life and soon forgotten). Then again I have had fun in the grid view with mosaicked images and I’m still posting in threes, BUT….

What the? I’m still posting to my art project specific account @oz_endless_summer and the posts are starting to go all over the place, a bit of that here and something different there and then back to something else. This is starting to look like the contents of any of my sketchbooks. The worry is, the more I blunder around, the more likes pop up and the followers while going up and down are at least growing. Making all this harder to understand.

What is worse I do already have an on-line sketchbook which has gone from “My Daily Sketch” (it was last years commitment that didn’t last) to “My Occasional Sketches” (aka myscratchings.tumblr.com) on tumblr. Yes I post much the same stuff there still as well. Tumblr being in my opinion a much better platform, specifically I can control the links and syndication. Importantly it is not a walled garden like instagram. However tumblr is quiet (not as dead quiet as Google+ has become) but not many see my stuff and few like or comment. I’d convinced myself no one was interested in my works in progress and idea development. I just didn’t know where and who. So it looks like it time to toast Sketchbook Instagram.

Such is life