Old Forgotten Things

Here are some things that I forgot to post! They are all precisely one million years old.

First up is the forgotten monster that I painted years ago along with the other characters of this flickr set.
I somehow I managed to overlook him, poor thing.
Next are two color studies for the Telephone Series. I love them, they are as loose as it gets.
Then is an old but not too old page of colors from the messbook for the Tarot Journal notebook cover.
And last is the painting of a trio of goldfish, which is probably one of the first paintings that I made upon rediscovering gouache, ever so many years ago.
So many old things. My, how time flies.
And there are newer things to come.

The Messbook

Sketchbooks! I love them. I have a lot of them, and I use them for a lot of different things. I assume some people wonder why all my sketchbook work is so neat and tidy, and if I ever doodle or actually sketch or anything like that. Of course I do!

I have a few different kinds of sketchbooks, and the ones I'm especially fond of and work in regularly are the ones I call my messbooks and neatbooks.

The kind of sketchbook pages that I've shown thus far have been from my neatbooks, where the goal is to get each page to a finished state, to practice working in different media, and to be spontaneous and well thought out at the same time, in varying degrees. It's an exercise/experiment/workout/practice sketchbook, and everything is pretty tidy. Hence the name, neatbook.

Now, what most people would call a sketchbook, I call a messbook, because I go wild and make a mess. In it, I plan out illustrations and compositions, draw ideas and plans for toys and puppets, write, draw from observation, and of course, doodle endlessly. If I like something in there enough, it becomes the starting point for a new neatbook page, a painting, a plush toy, etc.

So, here is a little sampling from my messbook sketchbooks, just to give you an idea of what I mean.






















So! There you have it. I've made a new collection on flickr called Sketchbooks, and in it are the sets for my Messbook and Neatbooks No.1 & No.2. Well, from here on out, I'll be posting sketchbook images both neat and messy!