A New Book

I discovered the artwork of Stephanie K. Birdsong on Pintrest, and after reading through her entire blog and loving it, I decided I liked the idea of keeping a small book with a to do list and inspiration on one side and a painting on the other side. In one of her posts she said she uses books from the Hand book journal co., so a few days later I went to Hobby Lobby armed with my 40% off coupon to look at them. I liked the look of the square 5.5 book, it seems small enough to carry around and the pages are thick enough to take some paint, it is made for light washes. Though I think my idea and everyone else's idea of a light wash is completely different since my pages always buckle unless I am using real watercolor paper.

On the inside cover of the book I wrote my name, address, and phone number as I always do. I also added a quote I saw on  pinterest "No artist tolerates reality" attributed to Nietzsche. I also clipped a quote out of a magazine that says "If you want to get better, you have to play with people who are better than you". I believe the person was referring to sports but I think it applies in all areas of life.

On the first official page I thought I should state what my goal was with the book. It is supposed to be a quick sketch each day while drinking my coffee instead of mindless scrolling on facebook with a to do list for the day. There have been a few days where the word quick has completely left me and the "sketch" took me half of the day. I am happy with what I have done in this book so far but I really need to loosen up and not be afraid of "ruining" the book. I also bought some double sided tape that comes in a little rolling dispenser from amazon after asking an artist in one of my facebook groups what they are using. I had always used glue sticks but there are certain papers they do not adhere to. So I am very happy with my new tape. I also ordered some worldwide stamps from ebay for $1.99 including shipping that I plan to mix in.

So anyway, here is my first page in my new 5.5 book of a goat in gouache with the picture that inspired it and a to do list.