Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Some new sketchbooks...

I have had the 'flu bug for the last couple of weeks.  I had the influenza shot earlier in the winter, so luckily I escaped the worst of it.  Even so it was no fun, with high temperatures and accompanying shivers and sweats.
I have started doing a few things now though, including a little shopping....
 


I found some lovely leather bound 10 inch by 7.5 inch sketchbooks on sale in a bookshop, and I bought six of them for myself.  It may sound greedy, but it is surprising how quickly you can fill a sketchbook when travelling or making thumbnail sketches when working on a compositional problem.  Hopefully these will keep me going for a year or two, they are good quality paper and they will take watercolour as well as pencils, pastels and crayons.  they are quite tactile too, with their leather covers, it is a pleasure to hold and carry them around.  I have already created a fronticepiece doodle in the first book, noting when and where I purchased them.  This helps me date the sketches in the books, as I rarely date the sketches themselves, but I date each book as I start using them, so I have a ball-park date on most sketches within the sketchbooks. 
These are a nice large but convenient size for travelling, and I'm looking forward to my first trip of the year.  It may be our trip to Girona in Spain in March, but I hope to get away here in Ireland earlier, aside from a scheduled trip to the cottage in Sligo.. 

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