sketches ep 13 – trying new things and mastering old ones🧙🏼 | visual diary and botanical studies, reference/inspo pics | + February theme announcement! 💛 (Patreon)

Hi!

Today I’m going to share a few new pages from my pencil sketchbook and reveal the theme for this month!

I made even more sketches but some of them are part of the freelance project I’m working on, so I’d like to share them in a separate post where I’ll be showing you the difference between my traditional vs digital drawing style and process.

For now, I’ll show you some of my personal sketches.

Let's start with a very personal one!

The other day I was looking through my previous pencil sketchbook (sketchbook tour coming soon!!) and I found some sketchbook spreads I made based on locations or objects. I’d say that was my golden era of sketching! :D 

This spread is based on a trip I took with my mom a few years ago!  We spent a few days in Polish Tatra mountains.

I started this spread from drawing the landscape. It’s quiiite loosely based on the photo I took that day.

that's the photo!

Then I felt inspired to make a whole spread around that day and even added some text! So there’s some kind of both visual and verbal storytelling!!!

I wasn’t really planning on making a sketchbook spread like this (and honestly I’m not sure if I could plan it, lol!) it just happened! I wish I could explain the process better but seriously, it was spontaneus! I wanted to draw a landscape, then I started to look through pics from that trip and the rest in a history!

Of course I had to include a few botanical studies of some flowers that could be found in that area. As you can imagine, half of my camera roll were just pics of plants I spotted on our hikes!

I’m super proud of this spread. Technically it’s not my best work but I love this style of sketching and would definitely love to explore it further!!! 

A few more pics that were used as inspiration/reference for this spread:

I take pictures of plants everywhere I go :D most of them are pretty bad or blurred, that's why I don't share them often! I make them mostly to be able to identify the plant once I get home!

Okay, back to my sketchbook!

A themed sketchbook spread!! This one was inspired by… the tea from the previous page! :D I wanted to practice drawing tea pots and tea cups just for fun! 

It was also a great practice for making clean sketches! 

(for some reason I couldn't edit properly these pictures above so they look kinda yellowish?!)

Botanical studies!

I wanted to remind myself how to draw pansies -  these flowers are the theme of this month!

I started testing colors but of course it’s only the beginning!

I hope you enjoyed today's post!!

What do you think about this kind of visual diary style sketches?

Get ready to see more wild pansies soon!! :D

Marta