Sketchbook Update 97 (Patreon)

It feels like yesterday that I made a sketchbook update but I've got so many pages that I thought I better do it before it gets any bigger! 

I blasted through my last sketchbook, and I'm now onto sketchbook #32- (I started counting them at the start of uni, so uhh 14 years ago!) 

The old one (right) was becoming impossible to handle because it was too thick with everything I've been sticking in! (Fish stickers and fruits by Shazleen Khan, frogs by Becky T Arts, little guys by Lily Vie, mushroom guy by cheyenne barton)

Saying that, I'm still very much loving the binder-sketchbook decision I made, I love being able to put whatever paper I want into it. I've gotten some larger rhodia/Claire Fontaine paper (a note pad that I pulled apart) as I found the tiny notepads really smooth and good for fountain pens, and there's something so pleasant about dotted paper too!  

I've also been playing bg3 again so there's a little of that in there! It's nice to dip my toe into fanart after a long break. I feel like big fandoms get really hostile and I don't enjoy the space as much.

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Lots of plein air, but gouache this time!

I put some of my gouache into a watercolour palette and let it dry, and I've been really enjoying it, tbh watercolour has never been my favourite but it's the best portable option. I did always have a white and a couple of other gouache squeezed into my mini watercolour palette, but I thought it would be cool to try full gouache. It went...questionably well, the reds are very prone to cracking and crumbling, so next time I'll find some kind of agent to mix with. I've been loving it anyway, though! It's nice to keep myself feeling kinda fresh by learning something new on the side! Gouache is so tricky, light colours dry darker and dark colours dry lighter, so it's a tough learning curve! It's exciting though.

The trees and grasses are very very slowly turning brown, and there's a great haze over everything especially on a morning, I need to wake up early and get out to paint it!

The downside of autumn in the UK is that everything is soggy and muddy, I put my chair in the field and it sank halfway in!

With this first one I just took my wooden contraption and no stand or thing to sit on, forgetting how bloody heavy it was, so ended up sitting on the dirt and getting a wet cold bum 😅. It went way better than the last gouache I tried though, I used much more water because it was dried pans, and I kinda prefer the look. 
And the second one I accidentally set up on a field that was still being plowed, though the farmer said I could finish thankfully 😅. As of writing this all the fields are plowed now, which means my shortcuts and painting spots are much fewer, but the cows will go back in hopefully next month and I'll have many fields to myself and routes to walk :p.

I looove how this one came out, it was quite loose and fast as opposed to the earlier ones. Also i found sugar paper has such a fuzzy quality and the paint soaks right into it, which is tricky to work with but I love how it looks.

The grain on it is lovely! (Tho it is even harder because the sugar paper and gouache Both change colour when wet...)

Aaand a bunch more. I'm not where I want to be with it, and I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing, but it's good fun!

More donkey sketching, they were very funny, I'd be trying to draw them but if one decided to come over they all would! So I spent half the time walking backwards from them to get a decent view.

I looked after a neighbours sweet old cat, our cat is really not a lap cat so it was a nice change. I also got to help myself to the garden which is always kind of magical. I don't like apples, but there's something amazing about pulling fruit off a tree and eating it. Had to do it!

Some more things that made me think 'aaaaa autumn!', and also Josie hanging out with her friend Jess.
I hope you all have an excellent October!