Happy Flag Day!
One of the reasons I decided to get serious about painting and drawing was I saw it as a way to keep track of our journey as retirees. I’m not really sure where I got the idea of drawing/painting as we traveled but it’s certainly turned into quite a habit.
What I do know is on January 5th of 2018 I started my first sketch book and in December of the same year I drew my last sketch in that book. I know that in the beginning I used pencil but by the end I was mostly doing pen and ink. In fact, if you look closely at the picture above you can see the sketch on the other side of the page showing through…the sketchbook was designed for pencil, not pen and ink…oh well.
What’s fun about keeping the journal is looking at sketches like the one above and remembering we were staying in Chappell, NE at a nice little RV park not too far from this grain elevator. Oh…and it had trains going through town every thirty minutes blowing their horns…24 hours a day.
There are sketches that I did directly from life, like this one I did while chilling out at the Sequim, WA Lavender Weekend in 2018. If you’ve never tried lavender lemonade…oh are you missing out!
I have several where I was practicing or experimenting with new techniques, like blind contour drawing. I have many more that I did from photographs.
I experimented with fountain pens, Micron pens, pencil, and brush pens. There are good memories…there are not-so-good memories.
An artist’s journal helps me to chronicle our life, practice my craft, and…just have fun! In the future I’ll publish a few more of my journal entries just for fun.
I hope you enjoy my posts!
Now get out there and make some art!