sketchbook ep 31 ✏️ lots of sketches (13 pages!) | books📚 | new illustrations | 🌹February’s theme announcement🌹 (Patreon)

Hi!

I’ve been drawing and sketching a lot lately!

I’m really into drawing blueberries (as always, lol) and flowers.

Well, maybe it’s a sign that the Spring is coming?!

I’m looking forward to the nature blooming again!

Anyway, let’s start with the announcement!

February is the month of love.

I haven’t really been into Valentine’s Day nor roses, but this year something has changed!

Sooo… if you haven’t figured that out already (if you’re keeping up with my IG stories you might!) February’s theme are ROSES!

Actually I haven’t drawn these flowers for years and I feel like they’re even more challenging to draw than peonies.

Oh, next time I’ll show you my rose illustration from 12 years ago. It was terrible! :D

So I’ve been practicing a lot and there’s still more practice to come!

I have some rose sketches to show you today, but let’s start with morning glory.

Flowering vines are just sooo beautiful, aren’t they?!

I’ve been sketching morning glory a lot since it’s just gorgeous plus I feel like I’m not that great at drawing flowers in this particular shape. I find it quite difficult!

This plant is actually called ‘ipomoea purpurea’, I have no idea why I kept skipping the second ‘o’! :D

Some boring sketches that are necessary to learn how to draw a flower! (or anything, honestly)

Since it was a low pressure kind of practice, I quickly switched to using my ‘regular’ sketchbook (a sketchbook where I can use colors).

 First I made these sketches on the right page, then got a bit more confident and created more complex illustration on the left side.

Next time I think I’ll use more blueish shades of purple but I’m happy with how it turned out anyway!

Now, back to the roses.

As I said, I want to learn how to draw these flowers.

There’s soooo many types of roses out there!

For now I’m focusing on just learning the basics, learning how to draw a ‘regular rose’, then I might get more specific.

I’m kind of tired of using online sources of photo references and it’s still cold outside (it was -17 degrees Celsius/1,4 Fahrenheit this morning!!) so I figured I might need to find some books!

I thrifted a gorgeous book from 80s! Then my fiance surprised me with another beautiful book about roses, so now I have two wonderful sources of inspiration! :D

‘Roses. The complete plates 1817-1824’ illustrated by Pierre-Joseph Redouté.

‘Roses: a concise guide in color’ written by Ludvik Večeřa, illustrated by Jirina Kaplická.

I’ve been gravitating towards using books as inspiration lately.

I can elaborate on that and show you more books soon!

Some of my rose sketches still look like cabbages, but I guess it’s okay!

You get to see all of my sketches, the good, the bad and the ugly! :D

I made them using the blue + black pencil technique (basically I make a blue sketch first and then make a ‘final outline’ with black pencil, so the results look cleaner)

This time I managed to scan some full spreads! yayy!

I haven't finished this one yet, but hopefully you can see the blue sketch!

Please don't judge the cabbage, lol!

Maybe having 3 coffees before lunch wasn't the best idea... :D

I'll be finishing this page (and this spread) next!

I haven’t made any rose illustrations yet (like, colored illustrations) but I finished another blueberry themed sketchbook spread!

Oh, I might add some stars or color swatches later!

and pink houseplants!!

My scanner doesn’t do the justice to pink and purple tones - that’s the best I can do in terms of editing today! :D

PS. As always, thank you for the patience! (I’m still catching up on previous rewards)

I hope you're not overwhelmed by the amount of sketches!!

I’d love to hear your feedback!

Love,

Marta