cover to cover

I finished this sketchbook yesterday after working on it for a little over a month. It has been an unexpected fun routine to work on these small pieces in spurts of a few minutes here and there. Each illustration took me about 15-30 minutes to complete. As many of you know, the paper in Moleskine sketchbooks is fairly thin so the ink did bleed through the pages. I skipped a spread in between each illustration to keep from ruining my previous work.

I was inspired by many of the flowers that I saw popping up this spring. For the most part I tried to interpret them in my own way without being entirely accurate. They're my made up versions of flowers. I liked that by working that way I could draw at leisure and just go with whatever was happening — very relaxing!

I have larger sketchbooks I can jump into right now but I think I'm going to get another small one like this, to start this process again. The size is just perfect for quick ideas like these.

What I used:
- 3.5" x 5.5" Moleskine sketchbook
- A variety of black ink pens (Staedtler 0.5 and 0.7, Micron 0.5, Sharpie) - I just used whichever was closest but my favorites (for this size of a sketch) where the Staedtler and Micron 0.5.
- For shading: pencil and a gray double ended Prismacolor marker (love the brush end!)
- One day I used a red LePen that a friend of work gave me. The tip is tiny and really smooth to use.

For now I'm back to working on my coloring book which is coming along thanks to this sketchbook. I used these illustrations as ideas for that book. The opposite is true too. Some nights I'd work on something for the coloring book and it would influence a sketch the next day. It's been great to go back and forth between the two projects.

Needless to say my work with cut paper has taken a back seat right now. If only there were more hours in a day! The good news is that I have ideas for my next A Little Hut set which I think will be a lot of fun. Stay tuned!