a bit of my process . . . sometimes

This post shows a wee bit of the process I sometimes go through in developing a sketchbook page. I am often inspired in unexpected ways.

After finishing all of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels written by Dorothy L. Sayers, published 1923 - 1939, I found four more books dealing with the amateur detective and his wife, written by Jill Paton Walsh using Sayers’ notes and fictional letters for her stories published 1998 - 2013. Early this morning I was beginning “The Atterbury Emeralds” when I came across this little bit about gentleman’s gentleman Bunter keeping a Commonplace Book. I had never heard this term before, so I looked it up. Here is the section from my borrowed ebook:

I often copy quotes or book passages in journals as a way of remembering them; this has been a habit since I was a teenager, though there was no art in books at that time. Who knew that there was actually a term for these books?!! So I planned out a sketchbook page where I could jot down this quote and the definition — adding some of my sketchbooks from my bookshelf.

First, I usually plot out some of my idea in pencil. Since I knew there would be lots of text here, I drew in lines using the Everyday Artist Sketchliner stencil, seen behind the right side of my sketchbook in the above photo. It can be found online at Cheap Joe’s art supplies.

Sometimes, especially if the sketchbook post is illustrating a block of text, I ink in the words first. After the ink is fully dry, I erase the pencil lines. Then I go ahead and add the chosen bit of art. Other times, I do the illustration first, then maybe add text if wanted. It all depends on my mood or the subject or inspiration!

The sketchbooks I just happened to randomly grab show a variety of styles I might choose. The bottom book is a purchased Venezia Sketchbook by Fabriano — Love the paper but the binding broke down in this book before I finished it. The next one I bound myself, making my own hard cover. The greenish one on top of that is also hand-bound, this time using a gutted antique book cover. The uppermost one is my first attempt at making an accordion-fold sketchbook. I love the variety of trying new things! (I see now that I should have added some shadows to the book stack, but I think I’ll just leave it like this.)