
A Peek Inside My Sketchbook
Between football season, getting ready for the holidays at the store, falling down on the ice and hurting my shoulder, working up an online class and Thanksgiving, I haven’t been able to do any felting. But I’ve been adding to my sketchbook fairly regularly. I make a lot of background pages and then keep adding to them as I’m inspired. If I have left over paint or ink, I will add it to pages in my sketchbook, then I’ll add other layers as I go along. Sometimes it is hard to determine when a page is finished. Some turn out better than others, but it’s good for me to not to be “too perfect” and just let the page develop.
This one has quite a few layers on it. The last layer is the dark blue. I used one of my sweaters as inspiration to make the organic/leafy shapes. The hardest part was figuring out whether I was coloring in the negative spaces or not. But it all worked out in the end.
I made the majority of this page quite a while ago but it still needed something. I added the quote from George Bernard Shaw and the “Be Bold” and now it’s done.
This was playing around with my watercolor crayons and seeing if I could make leaf prints. The easiest way to do this was to get a little paint off the crayon, brush it on the backside of the leaf and then print. It didn’t take much paint for it to work.
The ginkgo leaf page was printed with the large leaf several months ago. I added the other bits by printing out a few things from the internet, adding gel pen and more watercolors. Sorry the photos are a bit dark but I am doing this at the last minute and it’s dark outside.
I think this piece was printed first and then I used gel pens to add highlights. The brown paper had been in with my paper scraps for sometime, that’s why I can’t remember how it was done. I don’t keep very good track of what I do, I really just play around.
This one has some watercolor crayon that I sprayed with water and let drip down the page. Then I printed a line of bubble wrap bubbles and added the stenciled iris. The leaves and stem are cut from green paper. This one feels like it needs a bit more but I’m not sure what.
This page had two layers of screen print. Then I outlined the blue with an orange metallic gel pen. It gives a cool reflective edge. So that’s what I have been doing in my sketchbook over the last several weeks. Sometimes these ideas get put into fiber in some way and sometimes they don’t. But it’s a fun way to try out color schemes and ideas.
If you’re going to be in the Seattle area on December 21st, please check out the Winter Solstice Open House being put on by Gwen Lowery. I donated a piece to be sold. You can click on the photo above for all the details.
14 thoughts on “A Peek Inside My Sketchbook”
All the pages look really good, Ruth, but I really like the last one 🙂
Thanks Zed – I like that one too – it has a lot of depth.
I agree with Zed! My favourite is also the last one 😀
Thanks Leonor – I had fun making that one 🙂
Beautiful additions to the sketchbook and a great way to stay creative! My favorite is the leaf notebook cover.
Thanks Marilyn – it’s not really a notebook cover, just two pages inside the sketchbook. I like that one too.
That’s even better you can take it out and use it elsewhere!
I love them all and I see what you mean about the stencilled iris; there’s quite high contrast in the top half, would the bottom half benefit from some of the dark blue, perhaps in the background, to throw the leaves forward? Or perhaps some dark blue veins on the leaves….? I love that you let yourself doodle, that’s a real gift 🙂
Thanks Teri – the sketchbook is where I allow myself to play around and try not to be too critical of the results. I definitely think the bottom half of the iris page needs something and I was thinking of adding to the leaves. Thanks for the suggestions. We’ll see 🙂
well done Ruth. Your pictures are great. I quit like the first one and the leaf prints.
Thanks Ann – the leaf prints were really simple to do – the first one, not so much 🙂
what a delightful peek 🙂 love that we get to look at the inner workings so to speak, feel very privileged.
Thanks Jane! It is fun to see what others do in their creative processes, I enjoy seeing others work so I hope our readers enjoy seeing how I work.