A Fresh Start

Don't you love new sketchbooks? There is something a little scary about the first few pages though, isn't there?

I made these, but, as you can see, they aren't hand bound like many artists make when they make their own sketchbooks. I want a mix of the kinds of papers I like best, but I have no desire to actually bind books. I kept putting off taking these to have the spirals put on because I wanted to do something gorgeous and clever to the covers. You can't really tell in the picture, but these are just plain cream colored covers. The sketchbooks I buy don't have beautiful covers, so what's the big deal? It is a big deal.

The small one is 6 X 9 and filled with 90 lb. hot press paper and some 140 hot press - that's for watercolor journaling. The larger one is something like 9 X 11 and is filled with Strathmore smooth drawing paper, sketching paper, Aquarius II, Nideggin paper, and a few sheets of something else that I have completely forgotten in the time it sat there waiting for a beautiful cover.

Yeah, I know, this is a completely boring post. It was even boring to write, but I had to come up with something for day number five of blogging everyday for the month of November.

Tomorrow I go to the middle school to journal with four classes of sixth graders. That ought to be colorful and interesting!