Inspiration from the past

I love my sketchbooks. I try to keep one handy at all times.

It took me a while to get used to it, but now I feel incomplete if I don't have one with me.

Did I say I love my sketchbooks? I do.

Because you never know what's really in them until you go back through an old one look at them with new eyes.

For example:

This is a page from one of my sketchbooks from last year.

As you can see I used the top part of the page to do a quick sketch of a Circus Train for the  Illustration Friday website. The word of the week was "Wind." It was supposed to be read as the wind that blows through your hair, but I read it as you have to wind something up to make it go.

  I liked it and had room so I used the bottom half to do a tighter version using pen and markers. Like I said, that was last year.

Yesterday I revisited this page and used it as inspiration to draw/paint this...

I had some scrap that was left over from another painting and I wanted to use it to do a small one day painting. 

His basic proportions and the pose are the same, but I drew/painted him in the way that I am currently working.

He was painted using gouache on watercolor board.

He started out like this...

At least that's how far I got before realizing I needed to scan him if I wanted to show the process.

At this stage I have drawn him in pencil on the board, used a brown Pitt Pen to do a tight line drawing, then erased the pencil drawing leaving the pen line, I then did the underpainting in a sepia and brown mix of gouache and watercolor. After that I started to add color. As you can see at this stage the nose is pretty much done.

He turned out nice so I think I'll use him as inspiration to do a set of paintings. Maybe they'll end as prints or I can license them to someone. Maybe the little circle can be personalized.

I love my sketchbooks!

My sketchbooks are full of drawings. Some good, some bad. That's just the way it goes.

So I say, go out get a sketchbook and start drawing in it. If you don't like the kind you bought, buy a different kind next time and draw in it. Keep doing it until you find a kind you like and buy them when they are on sale, so you have a new one when the old one gets filled up.

I f you do this you'll soon be saying, "I love my sketchbooks!" too.