On finishing a sketchbook

I finished a sketchbook yesterday. I admit, I didn't love this sketchbook, a Stillman & Birn Zeta. The paper didn't work for my style of watercolor, it went soggy and squishy and spongy too easily. And ink seemed to slurp right into the paper. Not enough sizing. It was fine for pencil or ballpoint but the paper still just felt mushy. Oh well. I made it through. Some books feel like a battle to get through. You fight every step of the way with the paper and are just glad when it's over. Other books are like a favorite song, they fly by quickly and with great joy, and then you hit repeat so you can listen again. This book was a battle for sure. But hey, I made it through and that means I can start a new book soon without this old one sitting there forlorn and uncompleted. So, here is a little flip through video to show you this book start to finish. It's a mixture of mess, exploration, and more finished artwork. Most of my books end up that way eventually even when I try to keep one all beautiful. Without a bit of mess and exploration it's hard to find understanding. So here it is, in all it's messy glory. This book spans about a year. I started it last Fall and set it aside again and again because I just don't love the paper, as I said. But I hated to leave it unfinished, so I kept at it. There is only one completely empty page. I'm ok with that. I just didn't find anything that I wanted to put opposite that drawing of my daughter's bathing suit and towel on the rack. Oh well. Maybe some day I will decide to put something there. But for now, I am happy to shelve this book and start a Strathmore 500 series mixed media book instead. That will be a breeze. A walk in the park. A song. The paper makes all the difference.

So, without further ado, here's the Stillman & Birn Zeta

These boots are made for drawing...

I did this small drawing last week. I keep a sketchbook of tiny things, things that fit within the confines of the pages of this small Moleskine sketchbook, and recently I realized that this little pair of red books is probably the last pair of my youngest daughter's shoes that will fit in the book. Since I had long ago drawn her first pair in the book I decided to come back to this small format to draw these favorite red boots of hers. Here are her original little purple shoes, so small that both fit on the double spread of the book! 

After posting the photo online in a couple of groups several people have asked me how I make a drawing like this. So, so since I had conveniently taken several photos along the way while drawing this I thought I would put up a little how to for those who want to see how the drawing progressed. 

First drew the outline in a fine point black bic ballpoint. I even drew in every stitch of the white stitching detail because that white stitching is a prominent part of the look of these boots. 

Then I went in with a very light hand and started very softly building up some shading, again with the fine point black bic. Mostly I am just looking at the very deepest shadows for this first bit of shading. I don't want to go overboard with the black and have the whole drawing get super dark. 

Next I got to work with a couple of red pens to do some more shading. I used a warm and a cool red. The cool red was from a Staedtler pack of ten colored ballpoints, the warm red was from a Tesco cheap pack of 10 colored ballpoints. Using both colors allowed me to build up a more vibrant depth of color in my shading. At this point I had worked about 1.5 hours. 

Next I used a warm and cool red Staedtler colored pencil and just a little bit of an orange and a brown to smooth out the overall look of the leather of the boot by gently laying in soft glazes of color until I had the richness and depth that I wanted. You can't really tell in the picture here but through all this I was going right over those little stitches I had drawn  back at the beginning. Now I got out a white Gelle Roll gel pen and went over each stitch with that. It was too bright a white on it's own so once it dried I took a brown pencil and lightly went over all the white stitches to give them a slightly dirty and worn look. 

I liked how that section has gone so I did the same for the next section next to it, building layers of ballpoint, colored ballpoint, and finally pencils and white gel ink again. At this point I had worked about 2.5 hours. 

At this point I wasn't too thrilled about the balance of the composition on the page and I really wanted to get the zipper  that these boots have into the picture so I drew in the second boot and started in with shading. I spent a long time looking at the zipper and figuring out how the pieces all fit together and very softly mapping it out with pencil first as it was the most complicated part of this drawing to get right. At this point I think I had worked about 3 hours on this whole drawing foe the start. 

So, next I worked though all the sections of the book first in black ballpoint shading, then the reds, then I got out a couple of yellow ballpoints, one from a Tesco pack of ten colored ballpoints, and one from a Bazic pure neon color ballpoint pen set of 10 (the are available on amazon and are not actually neon in spite of the name), and a brown Staedtler ballpoint. I worked on the bottom of the boot and the small bit of leather showing inside the second boot last carefully and softly shading and layering in the yellows and browns to get the right texture. At this point I had worked about 4.5 hours. 

I made a final layering of a bit of colored pencil to smooth out the last sections of the boot and then went around the whole drawing with pencil evening and harmonizing the whole thing, adding a bit of dark purple in the shadows, adding some very light shadows which were too light to do with the black pen in the first go around of shading. Now I am at about 5 hours into the drawing. 

The last thing I do is to give it a background color and some shading and shadows around the boots. I wanted a background that contrasted with the red and orange of the boots so I layed in some blue colored pencil and a bit of purple and brown and black in the shadow areas to give it some depth. I added the text and gave it one last go over to even out the shading in a few spots and decided it was done. The whole drawing took me about 5.5 hours divided over about 4 sessions over a couple of days fit in around other things and doing other drawings in other books etc. 

I did not set the boots up in the way I was drawing them but simply looked at them straight on and went on instinct to creat the shadows. When I worked at different times of day I sat on the opposite side of the table to be able to have the light stay to my left, but otherwise I didn't worry overly much about it being a perfect representation. Things that were difficult to figure out visually I sketched in with pencil first, like the zipper and the shape of the stitching which needed to match in size roughly on both sides. 

I hope this was helpful for you! Have fun drawing!