This year my December seems to be super crazy and jam-packed – is it the same for you?

It is increasingly hard to find time to sketch but I’m thankful for some well-established habits! This means that I still sketch (in the morning and at some point later in the day) even though my days are super busy.

In this collection of recent sketches (done in an A4 hardcover Alpha book by Stillman and Birn), you will find:

• My usual morning sketches of the village green
• A good number of teacup sketches (part of my teapot and teacup combo project). Btw, thanks so much to everyone who voted on the next teapot I should use. I did a part-tally on Saturday afternoon (see below) and was surprised by the result. There is still time to vote (see here) as I won’t be doing the final count until later this week
• Two outings to the city (as discussed here)
• A few sketches done as part of my Live Version of Watercolour On Location
• A few crazy colour experiments – I’ll share more about these in the future.
• Some random boring everyday objects that record events of the day. Some of these create a weird combination of elements on the page but I think these pages will be super interesting to me in the future. (A general rule: the more trivial the object the more interesting it becomes years later)
• A few visits to Lane Cove National Park. It’s always calming to visit the park but lately, I’ve had a lot of thoughts circulating in my head and I think that my bush sketches become of way of processing these ideas. This is code for lots of texture! 🙂
• Lots of colour charts/swatches – a recurring theme this year!

Ok… enough preamble here are all my pages from the recent weeks

As I’m away for a few days this week and having a half-holiday (vacation) for the rest of the year (with more dedicated time for sketching) this article wraps up my ‘everyday sketching’ for 2022.

As mentioned in my recent review of interesting sketchbook pages, 2022 has been a great year for local/everyday sketching. I didn’t get to go on a big sketching trip but I managed to maintain a consistent rate of sketching throughout the year. And more importantly, I’ve felt inspired and motivated to sketch the same scene over and over again. This is mainly due to all the experimentation I’ve done – adding coloured pencils and markers to my sketching kit. I still have a lot more ideas in my head that I want to explore further.

So I’m heading into 2023 feeling good about my sketching and excited for opportunities ahead. And I’m looking forward to getting an injection of new ideas for my sketchbook layouts by going through Sketchbook Design again.

If somehow you’ve missed it… I’m hosting a Live Version of Sketchbook Design starting on 4th January 2023. Find out more about the course here  – and signup for free intro lessons here.

I hope that 2022 has been a good year of sketching for you!