Portraits of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the people murdered by ICE in Minneapolis.
My #sketchbookdiary is mostly about the mundanities of my life. It’s meant to be analog, grounded, imperfect — the opposite of AI — things that I have seen with my own eyes.
But sometimes the news is the only thing that seems possible to draw.
A page from my #sketchbookdiary from back in December, before the great flu. I am still working on a visual shorthand to let me draw the people in my life — or people, generally — in a way that captures something interesting about them. I am getting a little closer.
#sketchbookdiary progress: here’s where I am in learning to quick, highly abstracted sketches of people.
That turns out to be (artists out there will be shocked!) REALLY HARD.
Does anyone have resources to recommend?
Rough and ready brush pen draw and text - on one side the face of the main character in pluribus on the phone, and on the other a hurricane from above.
#sketchbookdiary about some powerful television we’ve seen this week - the first three episodes of #pluribus and the first four of #hurricanekatrinaraceagainsttime
A sketchbook spread of pen drawings with watercolour washes. There’s a brick building a Christmas tree, a cup of coffee and croissant and a mural from the wall of a Mexican restaurant. The text reads where was tied up on their birthday on Sunday so we planned a celebratory trip to the distillery district in Toronto for Monday. The big Christmas tree was being set up lights and booths were everywhere. We met up with some friends while James and I had some quiet time at Balzac’s, then we took away and their friends to Waze his favourite restaurant El Katrine for once a year fancy dinner.
Yesterday’s #sketchbookdiary entry — MY CHILD tURNED TWENTY. We went to Toronto for a special meal.
A sketchbook diary spread. One side is a largish drawing of a dark-eyed junco, and reads “welcome back juncos.” The other side reads “other delights” and has a drawing of my knees under a quilt , with a cup of coffee and a sleeping cat.
We had to take down the weeping cedar immediately outside the big front window. We miss it, but there are some upsides - better view of birds and light and sunnier spots on the couch. #sketchbookdiary
A drawIt reads: “ three years ago, when my mom was dying, I went out and adopted a cat. His name is Cygnus. He turned out to be the cat of my heart, the best cat I have ever had. When Gryfe was most acute – and when a few months later, Long Covid kept me in bed for a spring in the summer, Cygnus’s patient snuggles kept me alive. I don’t know if I would’ve made it without him. Today, I remind myself that I got him on purpose, that I chose warmth and dreams. I built a little free library then. I applied for a Radcliffe Harvard Fellowship so that I could dream about getting one. now, things are hard again. For months this year – six, eight – I couldn’t write depression has been very bad. But I chose to pick up a box of crayons. I choose a noodle and doodle. And now I choose this way – sketch journalling – to adopt my grieve self. To notice my beautiful life.
I finished the last spread in my first #sketchbookdiary today. I am taking a class from @sketchbookskool.bsky.social and the assignment of the day was “lots of words” so I wrote around why I am trying this practice.
Toronto no kings dat protester holding signs. A watercolour wash has made the ink run badly.
And then I drew it and then the ink ran. Sigh. But i have something to remember this great day #sketchbookdiary.
#sketchbookdiary - writing the acknowledgments for a novel, aka there are so many people and it’s not organized and inevitably I will leave someone out.
Big feelings out nowhere. Earlier this week I took my younger one, Polaris, to see our family doctor. Kiddo, like me, has been diagnosed with POTS, though their diagnosis is recent we don’t know what to do. Instead of help, we got a speech about not giving in, not waving the white flag to our disease, not defining ourselves by illness. I ended up crying in the car, sobbing “it’s not my fault “and “I didn’t do this to myself. “ Then, of course, a flareup of POTS
#sketchbookdiary about the fallout from a difficult medical appointment.
Me and my kiddo — 19 but still and always my kiddo — have a pact to work in our sketchbooks in the morning. #sketchbookdiary
Text reads: I have used a fountain pen for years, but I still cannot refill a pen from an ink bottle without staining my hands.
#iroshizuku ink in colour #Syo-ro
Experiment with the hand drawn with one continuous line.
#sketchdiary #sketchbookdiary
#sketchbookdiary text reads: we watched a documentary about fossilized footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Trying to date the peopling of North America.
A rushing woman pauses, resettles the child on her hip. Tiny footprints appear beside hers.
Text reads: I am Slooooow to get up. Coffee. Pills. Cat. Pointless scrolling. (Late night comedy on YouTube in the morning. New York Times games: spelling bee and crossword. The at wondering if it’s bedtime again.) Morning pages in a cheap spiral notebook I bought at a CVS in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Still in bed.
Suuuuper exciting morning here. #sketchbookdiary
#SketchbookDiary is inspired by #DannyGregory
"This is my desk. My blue leather desk pad, a stray power cord and micron pens, an unlit candle.
This is my favorite coffee cup -- irregular with the pinch of the potter.
Trying to pare down to just my favourite things and see them properly.
#MinorArcana
We build sanctuaries from the wreckage—
a cathedral of bone, grief feathered with purpose.
In the wake of ruin, love sharpens into ritual.
🦢✨🐍
Poem Prompt: Where the Ash Settled
Sketch Prompt: Cathedral of Bone
#PoemADay #SketchBookDiary #drawing #PoetryAndPaint #VenomAndVellum
✨Xmas Hols Japan Dump: Part 3 - #drawingjapan ✨
Life has delayed me from sharing, but nevertheless here we go!
Bucket List Trip Posts cont.🙌✨
Here’s a video of my fully opened out delicious @moleskine concertina sketchbook
C my instagram 4 full post ;)
#snoopymuseum #ghiblimuseum #sketchbookdiary
Sketch of baby monitor and teddy bear under Christmas tree
Sketch of sleeping baby under spreading tree near the river
Sketches of Christmas Eve disasters: kicking the baby down the steps, struggling to find a Christmas tree, broken table, covid etc
Sketch: self portrait with breastfeeding baby
Er happy Christmas and new year from my sketchbook diaries
#sketchbook #sketchbookdiary #kidlit #kidlitart #parentingjournal #parentingcomics #parenting #Christmas #dailysketchbook
Sketch of iguanodon towering over baby in pushchair
Sketch of me and baby suffering from covid - I have nightsweats and baby will only sleep lying on my chest
Sketches of attempting to amuse baby while we both have covid: bubbles, piano lessons, baking, staring at my phone
Sketches of things baby likes: still towel rail, the song yellow submarine, computer thumbnails
That time when both I and the baby had covid
#sketchbook #sketchbookdiary #parentingdiary #parenting #kidlit #kidlitart #dinosaur #iguanodon #quarantine
Sketch of Oxford botanical gardens and Magdalen colleg tower in autumn
Sketch of baby looking adorably at the mobile, which he likes more than me
Sketches of a busy and pleasant day - strictly, walk, hoovering, pasta bake, baby asleep with gorilla on his face
sketch of baby on mat with this toys, enduring his first cold
Sketchbook from October 2022: botanical gardens, mobile, a nice day, and the baby's first cold (of many!)
#sketchbook #sketchbookdiary #parentingdiary #parentingjournal #dailysketchbook #parenting #kidlitart #kidlitillustration #parentingcomics #botanicalgardens
Sketch of sleeping baby - his hand resting on toy gorilla in a wooly sweater
Sketches of "the S. and mummy show", in which I narrate cooking, nappy changing, and (best of all) laundry to an enthusiastic baby
More of baby's first friends, including windows, bells, the sky, my hair; also baby's first enemy: shadows (or the ghosts residing in them)
Sketches of an awake baby reading a cloth book about sheep and a sleepy cross baby in a sleeping bag
More baby sketchbook diaries (from Autumn 2022)
#sketchbookdiary #sketchbook #babydiary #parentingdiary #parenting #dailysketchbook
Sketch of giving the baby his first bath - he is nonplussed
Sketch of the baby's first friends: my breasts, towel rail, the other baby who lives in my phone, my water bottle, the picture of a whale
Sketches of doing nothing much with a small baby, e.g. poking him to make sure he's awake, endless laundry, watching a documentary about the queen's hats
Sketches of the baby's first severe screaming fit and my failed attempts to console him for 3 hours
Sketchbook diary: baby's first bath/friends/screaming fit
#sketchbookdiary #sketchbook #babydiary #parentingdiary #parenting #dailysketchbook
Black and white sketches of new baby
Sketches of new-baby-related disasters: leaking catheter, my mum spectacularly breaking the washing machine, pulling down curtain rail during midwife visit
Sketches of new baby feeding, hiccupping, sleeping holding my hand + some terrible puns: "how's your new baby? - he sucks"; "how am I doing as a new mum? - I rock"
Sketch: neverending cycle of feeding and changing new baby
Sketchbook diary: back when the baby was extremely new
#sketchbookdiary #sketchbook #babydiary #parentingdiary #parenting #dailysketchbook
