Hey everyone!
I am back with a new video and this is going to be a sketchbook tour for 2016 and 2017.
The first one that I am showing you is the Moleskine Cahier blank journal in the craft
paper cover, and this one came in a set of three when I bought it and I bought it from
just an art store which is Eckersley’s if you live in Australia or in Melbourne.
And if you watched my previous sketchbook tour video, this is the same exact sketchbook
– or sketchbooks I should say.
I am using the same brand or brands for both of these sketchbooks.
Like the second one that I’m going to show you as well is the same brand and same exact
sketchbook because I love using these two simultaneously.
I kind of feel like I found the method that works for me when it comes to filling in sketchbooks,
because with this Moleskine journal, I tend to use it as a place where I brainstorm or
brain dump and it just feels like there’s less pressure for every single page to look
great.
So this is where I mainly did some concept developments for the artworks that I did for
the YouTube Artists Collective for example.
And I also have some that I did for the first month of the Patreon theme challenge.
And to be honest, the second time around using this journal, I didn’t feel as happy with
it as I did the first time I used it.
I feel like I kind of raved about it on the first or the previous sketchbook tour video,
but with this one I’m not super keen about it.
I think it’s because I haven’t been sketching with charcoal recently, and so I realised
how limiting the paper quality was.
I mean, okay like I know it’s not made specifically for drawing or mixed media that’s why its
called a journal instead of a sketchbook, because I feel like this is more just for
writing or it’s just writing paper.
But I feel like last year I really liked using gouache and charcoal with it.
So in a way I was able to get away with using drawing media with this kind of paper, but
with watercolours and ink unfortunately it doesn’t look so good on the paper – which
if you have noticed those are the two most used materials that I have been loving this
year.
So yeah!
I can’t wait to finish all three sketchbooks and finally move on to a different sketchbook
where I can brainstorm and explore concepts with lots of different media.
And right now the only thing I now like about this blank journal is the size.
I still very much prefer thin sketchbooks like this because I feel like they’re easy
to fill in and definitely less intimidating.
Of course with this one I didn’t finish it super fast because I wasn’t using it
as frequently as I did with the other one.
But anyway!
I also find the pockets helpful since I want to store the final sketches with the sketchbook
so that it’s all in one place.
And that’s what I did with this one.
At the moment I do store all of my sketches in a separate folder and I don’t really
like that set up.
Because every time I look at those sketches, it makes me feel like I shouldn’t be keeping
them anymore since I already turned them into finished artworks and it just seems like I
could be using that storage space for something else.
But at the same time I do want to keep those sketches because they are heavily part of
the process of how an artwork is created so it kind of has a bit of a sentimental value.
So I’m thinking in the future I’ll just either make or add pockets to every sketchbook
that I use, or just find a creative way to keep the final sketches like with these ones
I just glued it to the pages.
I don’t really like how that looks but that’s currently all I can think of.
If you have any suggestions of how you store sketches maybe in your sketchbook, let me
know in the comments below cause that’s something that I want to figure out since
I want to keep the final sketches with the other sketches that are in the sketchbook
so that the timeline is also nice and organise and so that it’s also all in one place.
And yeah!
The next sketchbook in this video is the Reno Art A5 hardbound sketchbook.
And I got this from a local $2 shop, which is kind of what we call those small individual
dollar stores scattered everywhere here in Melbourne.
It’s not actually $2, I wish it was, but it costs $5, which I still feel like, is relatively
cheap for the quality.
I mean it’s got a nice thick cover with white cartridge paper inside that’s about
100-150gsm so that’s pretty thick paper.
It’s also stitch bound so it lays nice and flat, which is a big deal for me when it comes
to drawing.
So as you can tell I really like this sketchbook.
I mean this is actually the third sketchbook I used on the same exact product and I’m
currently using the fourth one or my fourth one.
And because it’s cartridge paper, you can get away with using lots of different media
on this sketchbook compared to the Moleskine blank journal.
I mean this one is specifically made for drawing.
So I used ink, watercolours, gouache, markers, pencils and also some collage, so this is
definitely suited for my drawing needs.
But just a little disclaimer, this is not mixed media paper.
It’s cartridge paper so technically, it should only work with pencils, but I like
the buckling effect that the paper has when I use watercolours or gouache with this, that’s
why I still use those kind of media with this kind of paper.
And in terms of how I use this sketchbook, this is where I tried to come up with ideas
and themes.
So if the previous sketchbook is where I would take a theme, and explore and develop it,
here is where I come up with the themes that I could potentially explore and develop in
the future.
And that’s pretty much the system that I use for my sketchbooks, and right now I feel
like it works so I might just continue with that from here on out until maybe it doesn’t
work anymore or I find a better system to use.
I also treat this as an art journal so there’s some writing here and there.
I also sometimes like to think that I can write poetry, so there’s a bit of that too.
Sometimes I also write song lyrics or just snippets from songs that I like.
I also like to collect quotes so there’s some of that here as well.
And if you see pages where I stick something like a photo or coloured paper, it’s most
likely because it had a sketch underneath that I didn’t like so I covered it up with
some pretty paper or pretty patterned paper and then I’d draw on top of that, or sometimes
I wouldn’t, depends on what I feel like.
And that is also how I make this journal kind of a safe place for me to experiment because
if I make a mistake, then I just cover it up.
So I’m not intimidated to draw.
I feel inspired knowing that if I don’t like how something looks I can just fix it
up and yeah!
You might also notice that the last few pages of the sketchbook don’t look as nice as
the first few pages – at least in my opinion they don’t look as good – and that’s
probably because towards the end of this sketchbook, I no longer felt like drawing in it.
I wanted to start a new sketchbook, but I still had more than 10 pages of blank paper,
and I really wanted to use it up, so yeah!
I feel like the drawings look forced or they look a little uninspired.
I don’t know – maybe it’s just me – maybe because I’m the one who did the drawings,
and I knew how I was feeling as I created every page, so I feel like I could tell when
the drawing or the page didn’t come out as how I wanted it, or if I did something
half-assed, so to me it shows through the page, but it might not for you.
I don’t know.
Anyway, that is it for this video and these are the two sketchbooks I finished from October
2016, which was last year, and June 2017.
And I really hope that you enjoyed this or that maybe you found it inspiring.
If you did, please don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe if you
haven’t already.
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Society6 and Storenvy.
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Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next one!