This is what my brand new sketchbook looked like at the end of January! Hoping to fill it in a bit more with a different theme by the end of February.
Sketchbook #1
8/52
“A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2014”
Olivia: We came to realise this week that she has very much outgrown her baby stage. She doesn’t want to sleep in her cot anymore, but in the big bed. She doesn’t want to seat in her high chair at the dinner table, but in papa’s chair (with no booster seat, we tried and she firmly refused!). She doesn’t want to seat in her pushchair for long, but prefers walking. It’s a joy and a pain to see her grow so fast.
Baby-to-be: And again this week, I’ll get a new picture in a separate post!
Linking up with Jody from Practising Simplicity.
Project 52 into a photo book
Last year’s project “A portrait of my child, once a week, every week in 2013” has been a success! Although I started at week 3 I managed to carry on for the entire year and ended up with more than 52 pictures of Olivia. Between my inexperience and an ever more active toddler, not all of the pictures were great, but some were good enough to make it onto 30x20cm canvases.
But I really wanted a photo book to capture the changes into my daughter’s life throughout a year. Also, each week, together with the picture, I had made a note of some facts about Olivia’s life, her achievements and some funny stories. And I wanted to keep a record of that too.
I decided to go through Photobox, a trusted site I used many time before. The quality of their product is awesome, and if for any reason you are not satisfied, they’ll do whatever they can to meet your expectations.
I chose two different sizes for the books, a square spiral softcover one and a small soft cover one. The first one was for the grandparents, big photos and no text. Because the notes were written in English and they don’t speak English, I thought it was too much effort to translate everything in Italian. But they ended up with about 60 full pages (20x20cm) picturing their beloved granddaughter, and so far they have not complained a bit! 
The smaller book was for us to keep. I liked it because it was rectangular (approx. 18x14cm) and perfect for fitting both pictures and text side by side. I used the same layout throughout, except where there was too much text to fit in and in that case I used a double page spread for just one week. Probably a bigger size would have been better, but surely not cheap.
The site was fairly easy to use, I uploaded all the pictures at once, chose the type of book and the layout for the cover and for the inner pages, and the book was automatically created. Of course you can make changes and move things around, change the colour of the background and so on.
To add the text I copied it first from my blog onto a word document, and then manually copied it onto the site in the text box available on each page. A bit tedious but well worth it.
Olivia loves looking at her pictures, and I’m sure she will appreciate reading through my notes once she’ll be old enough to do so.
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I’m just sharing my experience with Photobox because I love their products and used them many time before.
Lately
Trees illustration – watercolour
Valentine’s card – red ink pen on Bristol board
Topiary textures exercise – watercolour
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Flower dooddle – black ink pen on Bristol board
Daffodils – black ink pen and watersoluble pencils
I have been neglecting this space a lot lately, and was wondering if I should really try and keep it alive.
And my answer is YES.
I have the intention of CREATING a lot this year, together with enrolling in at least one art class. And this where I want to share my work, whether it is a work in progress, a finished painting, an evening doodle or a simple exercise.
Sketchbook #1
Despite the numerous unfinished sketchbooks, this January I started a new one. I had a new project in mind, and the current deal “no new sketchbooks until all the others are completed” wasn’t really motivating me anymore, if not holding back my creativity.
Moreover, my brother and his girlfriend bought me a new sketchbook this past Christmas, so really that was just an excuse to use it!
I’ve also decided to start labelling my sketchbooks. At first I thought of numbering them all, including completed and unfinished ones, but as I’m giving myself a new start this year, I went for starting afresh and begin from #1.
I’ve written a bit about this little project before (here), but I will be using Sketchbook #1 for themed drawings/illustrations/watercolours, mainly taken from two little books I recently bought: 20 ways to draw a tree and 20 ways to draw a tulip.
Over the past month, I focused on trees shapes and illustrations, covering various styles and seasonal palettes. The idea is to get practising on nature subjects that I like, and to make a painting at the end of the month using what I’ve learned.
I’m still drawing sketches for the final piece, but given the fact that I don’t have much spare time to paint, I want to make sure that I’m actually creating something that I like, rather something just because.
This month I will be focusing on flower bulbs. The subject is actually not covered in any of the books I mentioned above, but I was really inspired after seeing my flower bulbs starting to sprout. And I already have a plan for the final painting. It is true when people say the more you create, the more you get inspired!