Trish and that One Viral Sketchbook

A good piece of advice I have learned in my forty..... something* years is this: Just because something is popular does not mean it is good.

Behold, because curiosity got the better of me, that Viral Sketchbook from TikTok:

 

Hoo boy. Where to start.

Well, the cover's pretty sturdy.  It has a nice soft fake-suede feel to it.  The binding is *pretty* good, and it is indeed a lot of pages for the price.  

Except those pages are practically tissue paper.  

I'm serious, they are unreasonably thin and wimpy.  Wimpy in that this paper couldn't make a cut in an overripe tomato.  Thin in that I dot an I while writing in the poor thing and can see the imprint three pages later.  I use my trusty ballpoint pen, but the most appropriate media for this book is None.  A cheap Crayola marker left uncapped in a junk draw for thirty years and in it's dying breath of ink could bleed through the pages.  Fresh markers are obviously a no-go and you can forget about watercolors.  Pencils are fine if they are very soft, and not sharp. 

So in other words, maybe this is a good Sketchbook for somebody out there but not me; none of my preferred drawing techniques work here.  Unfortunately, OCD is a hell of a thing and so I have a sickness that makes me never abandon a Sketchbook in progress.  I'm sticking with the Viral Sketchbook even though it's a struggle.  Note that while scanning this Sketchbook (also a real pain because of how big it is), I have a sheet of white card paper between the pages because otherwise you'd see drawings from the next three pages.  Argh.

Well, anyway, here's "Nature: The Burren, Ireland's Kingdom of Stone", or my sketches of same:

Next time - more sketches from "Nature" episodes, probably!

* - Well, it's like this. I turned 42, which should've been a huge deal, the very week the United States started taking Covid-19 semi-seriously and went into lockdown.  So... yeah.  It's not just me, turns out other Mid-March birthday-havers who remember that experience seem to all be sharing a weird feeling of "what is time, even".  Also I am astoundingly bad at math.  So I don't really know how old I am.  Wait a moment...  Oh, hey, I'm not fifty yet!  Cool!

Denik and Olympic Figure Drawings

Denik is a company I'd never heard of Until I happened upon this Sketchbook in good old Reny's (if you know, you know.  If you don't, enjoy.) 

 

It's sturdy and full of good, thick pages; thick enough to be a "both sider" in fact (you can draw on both sides of each page).  Perfect for my favorite method of quick-sketching with a ballpoint pen.  And they support an excellent cause, funding art education programs around the world.

These gesture drawings are from about a year ago, as I was watching the Summer Olympics.  Mostly Breakdancing (to reiterate what my self-caricature says, I could do 1/5th of a Windmill and ruin my entire day year life.), some shotput, and a cameo from my cousin's cute dog.    

 

 

Next week: I bought that one TikTok Viral Sketchbook and I have Capital-O Opinions... 😓

The Shizen Design Sketchbook and "Nintendo Power" Studies

 I can't leave good old Artist and Craftsman Supplies without buying a Sketchbook.  You know how it is.  And my hankering for a nice, thick Watercolor paper sent me home with a very unusual one. 

 

This is the Shizen Design Rough Surface Watercolor Sketchbook and it is a beauty.  The covers are gorgeous and sturdy, I love the ribbon closure, and it's nicely crammed with thick, handmade paper.

Emphasis on the THICK.  This is thick, rough-surface watercolor paper.  I like some heft in my drawing paper and I like a little tooth but this was almost like drawing on a pile of paper towels.  

I have to say, I was struggling a bit - until I chanced upon something I wouldn't have expected to help.

Nintendo Power magazine on the Internet Archive. I found this in Autumn and read up until about the early 2000's. It was more fun than I ever would've expected and even prompted my very first Bluesky thread (and my goodness, I hope this embed works and is also in order, ha ha.  If not, have a link).  

So I’ve been reading this almost-complete archive of #Nintendo Power magazine and finding some pretty cool art and stuff. (Might fool around and start my first Bluesky exclusive thread…) archive.org/details/Nint...

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— Trish (@babbletrish.bsky.social) December 1, 2023 at 5:09 PM

As you see, I fell in love with the art.  Up until a certain point, I guess, Nintendo did not have their own in-house illustrators, and the "default" look for their many characters hadn't been nailed down yet.  They hired illustrators from around Kyoto and so we get delightful results like Shotaro Ishinomori's "Link to the Past" comic and whatever this incredibly Kid's Magazine From the Late 80's art style is.

And at some point, I decided, "I love this so much, I should draw these in my Sketchbook.  It's not great for doodling, but it's perfect for long... I'm going to call these Master Studies."  And so:

These was so much fun!  I ended up using the softest pencil I have and a double-ended permanent marker for the lines and my trustiest set of watercolor paints.  you can see how soft and toothy the paper is in these scans.

I couldn't not draw Megaman as he appears in "Captain N: the Game Master".  Look at him!  I really do think "Draw Your OC/Favorite Character/etc. In the Specifically Wrong Way DiC Would've in the 80's-90's" would make for a great drawing challenge.

Next week: A Sketchbook for a Good Cause.

Goat Yoga and a Sketchbook Roundup!

 I not only have sketches from a Goat Yoga experience we had at a local dairy farm, I also have a Sketchbook Review!  First, a roundup of recent Sketchbooks:

The one I'd like to talk about today is the Talens Art Creation Sketchbook.  

It's rather nice.  Very good for drawing on the go and the pages have a nice quality, as you can see:

So what did I think of Goat Yoga?  If it's your thing, cool, but I don't see myself doing it again.  I had more fun sketching and petting than exercising.

Next week - a very unusual Sketchbook with very unusual needs... 

Sketches from "Nature": "A Fistfull of Talons"

 While I'm aching for a rerun of "Raptor Force" some day, this was an outstanding episode.  Secretary Birds!  Seriemas!

 

The Extinct Fine Art Gallery

Me and many other very cool artists are participating in the Extinct Fine Art Gallery.  My paintings are going to carry over into the next "cycle" of exhibits on Friday, so you have a couple more days to see the first round and-

"Trish, this is your first blog post in two years, where the blazes have you been?" 

Ah yes.  Well, in a word, I've been busy.  I've been gradually shifting my online presence over to BlueSky, and that's proven to be more of a project than anticipated.  It's been hard, but I hope to get back into the art sharing and blog-posting groove.  Thank you for your patience.

Vintage Paleoart: Rien Poortvliet's Journey to the Ice Age

Many of us probably know Rien Poortvliet for Gnomes, which is an undisputed fantasy/fantasy illustration/speculative biology(?)/well, spec-bio-adjacent masterpiece.  But he had many other beautiful books to his credit and among them, surprisingly, is a work of Paleoart:  

Journey to the Ice Age, published in English in 1994 by Harry N. Abrams is every bit as beautifully crafted as Gnomes and once again, Poortvliet's love and careful observation of the natural world shines through.  The paintings are based on his thoughts wandering while sitting in his hunting hide.  

A highlight of the book is it's focus on prehistoric people.  I'm especially fond of the series of paintings speculating that the first human to ride a wild horse was either very brave, very stupid, or some combination thereof and also somebody triple-dog-dared them.

And now, the mammoths.  Poortvliet had a few mammoth specimens on hand, like hair and a vertebrae; tactile reminders of the beasts, so they are never far from his mind.  This is a very beautiful book and I'm happy to have stumbled upon it.