sketchbook ep 42✏️ | what's new | book update | January theme announcement 💜🍃 (Patreon)

Hi!♥︎

I hope you’re all well and safe.

With everything that’s going on in the world right now, I don’t even know what to say and how to act. Should we just do things as if we’re just fine?

Honestly I don’t know. Please don’t judge me too harsh for that.

I hope you have some support and love around you.

Where was I?????

I wanted to start this year strong, had many plans for that!

First I had to catch up with book deadlines, which luckily I did (THE BOOK IS DONE!!)

I was waiting for the veeeery last minute to work on some things, which normally works great for me (or I like to tell myself that it does).

This time just a few hours before the final push (meaning: before I attempted to do a month worth of work in one evening) my mom sent me the message that her brother is not well and might die any minute.I live far away, so I couldn’t go visit them or do anything. What one is supposed to do anyway? I kept working. Well, at least my mind was occupied with something else.

He was only 46. Felt bad on Friday and by Monday he was gone. I’m heartbroken for his wife and daughter. But especially my grandma, who’s still grieving the loss of her husband and now she lost her youngest child. I can’t even imagine the pain she’s going through.I feel like this grief is not even mine, the loss is not mine to talk about.

I feel bad even talking about it right now, cause my narration here is more focused on how it made me feel and how it affected my month. Oh, that’s terrible.

Plus the world feels heavy for everyone, so I don’t want to add to that. Does any of you, especially those of you who create content, feel this way as well?I guess that was my attempt to explain why I haven't shared anything earlier this year.

All of this made me want to hide, to isolate and wait until I feel better, to not be a burden, to not bring ‘bad vibes’. I finally figured it wouldn’t help anyone (including me), so here I am, sharing colorful art again.

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Speaking of which…. I’ve been drawing a lot this month, but mostly for the book.

I made a lot of more ‘technical’ illustrations, explaining plant anatomy, types of leaves, color theory, types of inflorescence etc!

Here’s a tiny sample of things I’ve sent to the editor!

I’m pretty sure the person who make a layout for this book will change it, but for example there’s a short section about different leaf arrangements, with simplified shapes and in the book it’ll be followed with short description of each.

There’s quite big section about some basic leaf shapes – I included these examples here just to fill the space, lol.

I’m trying to keep all the photos and scans the same format! Let’s see how it’ll work.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚The publisher gave a me the permission to use some of this material on Patreon, soooo some tutorials are finally coming this year.

I don’t even know if ‘tutorials’ is the right word here, but basically I made something like ‘drawing leaves 101’ and I can share it here if you’d be interested!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚

and here’s a pile of other illustrations I made

and the front cover of a book! It miiiight need some color correction!

I was working on chapter openers and here are two of my favorites!!

I’ll be talking more about the book soon, probably in March.

For now, I still can’t believe it’s done! I haven’t seen and approved the pdf file yet.

It’ll be out this Summer by the way!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚

Now, it’s time to announce this month’s theme. It’s MORNING GLORY!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⟡⋆✴︎˚I illustrated this plant for the first time about a year ago.

Now I’m working on sticker designs. Here are some sketches!!

Often I draw directly in the sketchbook but sometimes I’d make about 5-15 small illustrations on a loose sheet of paper and later trace some of them into the sketchbook.

Usually I end up using less than half of them. It's more like a warm up exercise!

Can you spot which of these sketches I turned into illustrations?

Of course I had to start another illustration before finishing this sketchbook spread.

I mean, I need a few more illustrations for sticker designs, so it’s fine.I also made a sketch for a print design but it’s on early stages and the pencil lines barely show! (when I’m drawing directly in the sketchbook I use very light colored pencil, which makes showing sketches almost impossible).

If you're following me on IG you'll see the progress on these illustrations on my stories!

Speaking of which, I shared this book there today and I figured I can share it here as well!

I cut a finger really badly while cutting last month’s prints, which is ok, it happens, I guess I was trying to make it an intro to say that December's rewards are on the way!

I’ll need to make sure I’ve sent them to each of you who signed for physical reward tiers (I must admit I’ve been a bit distracted these past few weeks so I might've overlooked someone)

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If you have any doubts or questions about other rewards, shippments or anything, please send me a DM here! I've been quite unactive lately (while isolating myself) but I'm back on track!

Thank you for your continuous support!

This page needs a revamp and of course still some catching up and I’m looking forward to working on it!

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Please let me know what you think about this new format of sharing pictures.

Have you noticed any difference? Did you enjoy it?

Or should I keep sharing vertical pictures as well?

Talk to you soon! ♥︎

Love,

Marta