Anya Toomre 8/12/20 Anya Toomre 8/12/20

A Sketchbook Flip-Through

The last sketch to finish off my sketchbook

I finished a sketchbook! It only took 6 years! (lol!)

A Sketchbook Flip-Through of Notes and Practice from Two Workshops, 2014-2020

I took a couple of art workshops in 2014 and 2015 and put my notes and drawings into a sketchbook. One workshop was online with urban sketcher Liz Steel and her Foundations class which I highly recommend. The other was a sketching nature workshop with Charlene Freeman held locally.

When I take workshops, I like to copy notes from the class into my sketchbooks and I try to draw every image (except photographs) that may be in the handouts as well as try to do all the suggested exercises from class. Most of the drawings are ink and watercolor. Some are graphite only. I finished the Foundations class in 2015 but the nature workshop had images that I left to finish later. Much later. I have drawings in here dated from 2016, 2017 and then 2020. So this sketchbook was mostly but not all done for years. I’m glad that I finally have finished it!

Here’s a link to see a flip-through of the sketchbook:

A Sketchbook Flip-Through of Notes and Practice from Two Workshops, 2014-2020

The music in the video is Saturday Coffee by William Claeson.

Anya Toomre 5/17/20 Anya Toomre 5/17/20

Watercoloring a Seal from the Antarctic

Have you ever seen a photo and been inspired to try to draw or paint it? This is my effort after seeing one of my friend's pictures from a trip she took to the Antarctic. I loved one of the seal pictures she had and she kindly shared the photo with me so I could give it a try.

As you probably know, I work in sketchbooks and do something in one of them everyday. I'm a big believer in keeping and honoring having a creative habit. Working on finishing up this drawing of the seal was today’s effort. I also filmed my painting process and turned that into a video. I have other drawing and painting videos up on my YouTube channel as well.

The video condenses 40 minutes of drawing and painting time into about 6. The seal is done in ink and watercolor. I did the inking of the seal earlier in the week.

The sketchbook I used is a Stillman & Birn Alpha. The watercolors are from Daniel Smith.

The music in the background is At Midnight by Rupert Sachs and At Last Part II by Martin Landh.

https://youtu.be/8Sb6Ns_nBS4