Cracking Open A New Sketchbook | The Sketchbook Diaries

After taking so much of last year off from doing any kind of art, I am back at it. I have started two new watercolor sketchbooks and am planning to get back into my perpetual nature journal, too. In fact, I finally completed an entry from last March recently and need to work my way through more of them to catch up.

I wanted to start a sketchbook for some hikes we’ve been doing and will continue to be doing in the coming year for the Big Thicket. I’m working from photos because: time, but at some point it would be nice if a few of these were en plein air, too. I just cannot make that work, usually. Camping is always good for that but certainly not when we’re hiking and Chris and Forest have ants in their pants to keep moving. That’s best done as a solo venture.

The other sketchbook that I haven’t started yet but have written in on the title page to declare my intentions, is a Fakahatchee Strand sketchbook. We recently hosted the long-time and now former park biologist Mike Owen at our house when he was on a cross-country road trip (I should write about that, too) and talking with him about all of his work and reminiscing about all of our hikes out there made me revisit all of the photos we have out there. And I thought it would be nice to create a sketchbook full of paintings from some of those hikes.

That’s what I’m working on art-wise right now!