i art a day.

I’ve been pushing myself to sketch as much as possible these days, and drawing inspiration from other sketchbooks both in print and online. There are several people out there with the discipline to sketch and even post those sketches online daily, which I may never be capable of doing, but in the mean time I’m pushing myself just to fill up all of the pages of one book. I’ve found that the more I make myself sit down and sketch something the more I want to sit there and draw. So far most of it has been relegated to sketching at home and at the coffee shop, but I have high hopes for making some sketches of the city in the warm weather. I use mostly pencil and pen, and at the moment I’m also experimenting with watercolor and pen & ink in my books. For slow days I’ve got a list of 20 or so ideas to sketch out which I’ve definately used a couple of times.

Lasy week one of my friends sent me the link to Elizabeth Perry’s daily sketchbook site, woolgathering, which shows that a daily sketch doesn’t always have to be extremely detailed to be charming:

While the sketches don’t come rolling in daily, DC Comic’s David Hahn posts some entertaining comic sketches via his blog All Nighter:

Illustrator Daniel Stolle has revived his daily online sketchbook, much to my viewing pleasure:

The biggest hurdle at the moment is trying not to take my sketchbook too seriously. On the one hand, looking at other people’s sketchbooks is always exciting, but just as long as I don’t spend too much time comparing how good theirs look with mine. I’ve finally started using the book as a place to experiment and try out new ideas, and not really worry about if they fail and look terrible or not.