Hello for a Tuesday art roundup. I have a couple of drawings from the past few days that I'm rather excited to show and talk about, so let's just get on with it.

As I sort of intimated I might do in my last post, I've pretty much been working solely in my 5.5" x 8.5" Canson 300 series Mixed Media sketchbook for anything from quick figure sketches to more polished and detailed drawings. Since this is a mixed-media sketchbook as opposed to a regular sketchbook, I originally saw this as a place where I should only do work that was more refined and/or that utilized the paper's ability to take more mediums like paint or markers, which meant that I ended up only using this sketchbook and others like it infrequently, but I've fortunately loosened up quite a bit as I've gradually started using this sketchbook as my go-to at the moment.

A portrait sketch in pencil of a man from the neck up.

As I get closer to halfway filling up this particular sketchbook, I'm starting to get over some of my previous hangups about some sketchbooks and how they're too nice to just do anything in as I'm starting to do pretty much anything in a sketchbook that I originally had such a hangup about. That's sort of broken this steadfast perception of this and perhaps several other sketchbooks of mines being too special for quick and messy work as, in this sketchbook, I've already used up several pages on sketches and doodles that are nowhere near refined work. I'm still able to create nicer and more refined work in this sketchbook, but now I know that that is not all this sketchbook can be used for as its best use is perhaps as simply a place for me to practice and draw at whatever level of skill or focus I feel like at the moment.

Having said all of that, I've had a bit of fun filling in a couple of pages over these past few days. (9 pages or 4 and a half sheets by my count.) of course, there's been the usual timed sketches of figures and subjects with there being one time this weekend that I did a quick practice of sketching butterflies and even a scorpion.

A sketchbook page with three ballpoint pen sketches of butterflies and one sketch ballpoiny pen sketch of a scorpion.

Continuing on sort of from some of my drawings from this past Friday's post, I looked to a movie's production design for drawing subjects and turned to Anton Furst's work in the 1989 Batman film and ended up doing basic drawings of Axis Chemicals and another building that showed up in the background of a shot that I found visually interesting. This was fun little change of pace that helped me to look at these designs with more focus on the details that went into them.

Two pencil sketches depicting buildings found in the 1989 film 'Batman.'

Another drawing that I did these past few days was a pen drawing of the RMS Oceanic (1899). This was another quick piece taking about an hour or so, and as such, I didn't bother with doing a base sketch in pencil as I instead just immediately got to work with the pen, marking the basic shapes and proportions and expanding upon them from there. For a drawing that I just jumped right into and did in a relatively short amount of time, I am extremely pleased with how this one turned out.

A pen drawing depicting the RMS Oceanic, a two-funneled ocean liner introduced in 1899, setting sail.

I've also been doing a few more fairly quick portrait sketches/drawings, and my favorite that I've done during these past few days was one that I actually did today right before writing this post. For this one, I got the simple of idea of just adding some red acrylic paint around the portrait since, after all, this is mixed-media paper that could take the paint albeit with a little bit of the page curling here and there. I've felt a little guilty about not making the most of this sketchbook's ability to take some wet mediums as I've mostly just been doing pen and pencil pieces, and this was a nice way of incorporating said mediums with my regular sketches. On top of that, I just love the pop of color that adds some life to this page. Since I have a fair bit of paint that I should be using up, I think I will have to try incorporating more paint into my drawings and sketches to add some more color to this sketchbook.

A sketchbook page with a pencil sketch of a man from the shoulders up with red acrylic paint surrounding the man.

Well, I believe that that's all for this Tuesday, so until Friday when I can hopefully show some more work and hopefully even more color in my sketchbook, thanks for reading, stay safe, and have a pleasant week.

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