Weekend Sketches #11 - The Little Sketchbook That Could

Hello again to returning readers and a regular hello to new visitors! This week I felt like sharing some more analog sketches I had scanned out of one of my sketchbooks. I've been using this HJ Canada permanent black sketchbook for a lot of my offline sketching and I really like it. I liked it so much I bought 3 more of them when I saw they were on sale.

These sketchbooks are pretty cheap (imo) costing between $12-15 CAN for the 5x8 inch ones and have 284 blank pages and a stitched spine that allows the book to lay flat. The paper is acid free with one side being more rough and the other smooth. They're fun to sketch in with ballpoint pen and can take watercolour, to an extent (I have suffered some bleed through though haha).

Drawing in this sketchbook has been freeing for me because it is so cheap and innocuous looking, with some nice mid-grade paper, but it can take a beating. My current sketchbook has seen the horrors of having half my water bottle leak on it, and then later on got caught in my bike spokes while they were in motion. I don't feel afraid to draw in this sketchbook and can freely scrawl wonky sketches in it.

These featured sketches were more of a test. Normally I would sketch right to ink using ballpoint or a black Pilot fine-liner. I enjoy sketching or drawing right to ink because it forces me not to overthink what I'm drawing. But recently I've been thinking about how I want to approach texture with my analog inking, so I've started doing a pencil under-sketch and then inking over top with the fine liner.

I still consider these sketches, because I kept my lines loose and rough in order to retain that good illusion of motion a sketch has. Making them too clean can take away from the energy in the under-sketch. From this I let myself have fun losing myself in the texture of the sketches, from Nyx's hair to Sol's wings.

I've been on a long path towards learning to enjoy analogue inking and having this intermediate stage which is still technically low stakes sketching, but also not, has been helping a bit. By doing this I have been discovering what kind of inking style I would like to adopt when using my dip pens, and honestly the style I like is one that has rough and loose line art with lots of texture. I want my inks to look like they are vibrating.

Hopefully once I do more with my dip pen I will scan and show those to y'all tuning in. Otherwise, thanks for stopping by, and have a nice weekend!