Sometimes November can feel like a very long and dark month, but not this time! December arrived so fast and now that I’m collecting all the sketches, I realize that I’ve been having a lot of sketchbook fun!

November sketches started with doodles for Folktale week. The prompts were released in mid-October, but I didn’t have the time to start working on them right away. That’s the clever and nice thing about this challenge, they give you a few weeks to prepare (and it’s only 7 days), unlike, for example, the Inktober challenge which is a whole month and often prompts that feel rather limited. (You can see my series here).

Because the story that I was illustrating was set at the beach, I was researching coastal places. Houses, fishermen’s huts, boat houses,…

Then traveling I could finally get to an art shop and I was as happy as a kid in a candy store. I got a whole lot of pencils, some pastels, gouache, … (see what I got here). And I’ve been back for some specialized paper for printmaking too (more on that in a later blog).

My current favorite pencil combination is:
Ultramarine blue + Dark cadmium orange (both Caran d’ache Luminance)

On Patreon, I joined a class that was all about type. Before the start, I had mixed feelings. Enthusiasm and curiosity but also a creative twitch remembering the weekly type assignments I had at school once. I wanted to write a ‘horrible assignment’, but I have to admit that this wasn’t true. We just had to keep a sketchbook only for type which isn’t so bad and pretty useful. But at that time, it gave me a lot of stress as I felt that I couldn’t do anything right for that teacher. It took me a lot of failing and getting back up to realize that learning and studying is something you do for yourself.

Speaking of education and doing it for yourself; I taking classes in printmaking again. As I started a bit later in the year, I’m still mostly sketching and preparing, but I’ll be sharing more soon.
Last week I had a very typical Fenne-moment. I was dropped off at school, only to notice at the door that it was closed for the day, and I had forgotten both my phone and wallet.
Luckily I had my sketchbook with me for the 2h45min I’ve been waiting outside to be picked up. Having trouble with numbers, I couldn’t remember any recent phone numbers, but with the smart phones these days, I was able to send an e-mail with a phone that I borrowed from a man who was walking his dog in the park of the school 🙂

With TJ, we’ve been sketching turkeys and scenes from the Native Americans through Patreon.

The Turkey session had an emphasis on texture experiments.

Another fun session that was perfect for a rainy Friday evening was ‘Lighthouses’. I loved these!

I also had a hard time seeing the heartbreaking injustice and destruction. On those days, drawing is about dealing with the world.

But processing what is happening through art and creating, isn’t only drawing what I see. I also let myself escape into other worlds where the only decisions are the colors of my pens and the lines I draw in a sketchbook while I listen to chats about school runs and art supplies.
So this session about a shop with inflatable unicorns, pizza, and watermelons was just perfect.

Now that I’m collecting all these sketches, I realize why I filled up yet another sketchbook 🙂
Off to getting a new one because another drawing session is on its way!

The Patreons that I followed in November:
– Sarah Dyer
– TJ Marston