Sketchbook Review #2
The End of Summer?....2023
Welcome,
The last time I did a review was when I finished my Artway Doodle sketchbook at the beginning of August. I thought this one can wrap up September’s newsletters as we go into autumn. The video is 10 minutes long and goes through my two sketchbooks from last year. At the time I was using Seawhite’s A4 Plein air 350 gsm landscape spiral bound books. The paper is fairly heavy and can take plenty of water. They are not traditional sketchbooks as such, more a show and tell of my journey through my painitings.
For those that may remember there was a program called Take Hart hosted by Tony Hart on British TV decades ago and it had a section called the gallery, with a memorable theme tune. I always had a craving to see the gallery despite not being very artistic myself. I think people just like to be curious as to what others are doing.
Now I have a few books on the go at the moment so this review wraps things up for a while. I am currently using an A4 Seawhite, an A4 Ultrasmooth hot press spiral pad, my DiY homemade sketchbook, another Seawhite A5 sketchbook and the new little 6” x 5” landscape sketchbook for the upcoming Inktober24. Each one has its own purpose. I now tend to use the larger A4 and the bigger blocks of Saunders Waterford if I want to try something a bit bigger at home. Perhaps when I'm in the mindset of doing some grown up watercolour 😆 (or one of your family want something doing)
I asked last time and it seems you obliged so I’m asking again. If you enjoy my publication or art it would really help if you could share and recommend, thank you.
Review
Porthleven snippets
From my recent trip to Porthleven here is a little video I put together to test my new youtube channel. Hope you like it.
I’ve been merrily writing to a growing list of interested subscribers with the sort of naivety of not really having any plan. I just enjoy it, draw, sketch, paint and share when and what I can. The guess is as I look out the window on a day of lashing rain and wind I’m beginning to wonder if I need a plan 🤔.
I didn’t think for one minute there would be 115 people putting their emails in a box to have regular updates from me. Or if I did, I thought it would take forever or maybe I would lose interest too quickly or just stop sharing as I’m really not from the generation who devour social media content. With that said, I am trying new things as the new Youtube channel video shows. I’m figuring out what I can offer and get paid for but of course need fellow readers like you. There seems to be a great sense of community on substack and it has inspired me to carry on and develop personally at the ripe age of 58.
Whilst setting up the new Youtube channel I got sucked into a video called
‘Over 40? You should start a YouTube channel and here’s why’ by Kevin Kolbe. ..
So, I did 😄.
Let’s see where that takes me. The link is already in my substack profile and more importantly it works, ha😆 and there is 1 subscriber. Apparently, when I reach 1000 subscribers I can become a YouTube partner. I may eventually be able to go out live sketching and broadcasting around Cornwall or the UK to you all, and get paid to do it. That sounds like the start of a plan to me!
Well enough of that nonsense for now, here are a couple of interesting reads I found recently.
Some recommended reads
and her Pixels, Paper & Paint substack is all about journals and scrapbooking in the digital design world. It got me interested as I didn’t really understand the concept until I came across Rachel.
When you think of the term scrapbooking one may think back to the traditional scrapbooks from years ago with heavy weight paper, photographs taped down, maybe a few notes and the date and the odd sticker here and there.
Modern day scrapbooking is a totally different affair with the craft and hobbyist stores packed with a wide array and styles of papers and embellishments to accent and adorn scrapbook pages, it can be an expensive hobby.
Digital Scrapbooking allows the crafter to use their digital supplies time and time again and to achieve looks that are just not possible with tactile scrapbooking. With the added bonus of being able to make changes, erase mistakes along the way etc. It's the art form of memory keeping by accompanying textures and embellishments (and words) with the photo to tell the story.
I realise people keeping journals and scrapbooks have been around for ages but Rachel’s love of digital design fuses so elegantly with the craft of keeping scrapbooks. If you add in your sketching and paint skills you may discover a whole new way of Capturing your World in your Sketchbook/Journal/Scrapbook
Go pick up some freebies from her Digital Scrapbook Day Bloghop Freebies newsletter.
- writes a media newsletter and normally I’m not that interested in the social media cacophony, I think it’s an age thing! However, I find his quick hits has some quite interesting snippets that occasionally get me hooked and I got caught diving into the rabbit hole.
In his newsletter The business genius of US News & World Report's rankings , the paragraph beginning ..
Business Insider launched a smart paywall that "determines the content that individual users are most likely to pay to access based on…
got me hitting the Digiday link about Ai and paywalls.
After obviously declining all cookies I quickly found a whole new media language including discussion on friction rates (I didn’t even know the term before looking at this article)
Anyhow, be warned if you are susceptible or curious about this and have just a fleeting interest in media you may find yourself on the hook being dragged in the rabbit hole with me!!
Gallery
The gallery is being populated with my work regularly. I try and keep it in chronological order so there may be new stuff appearing further down the page.
Drop me a comment if you like the gallery. I think it is for subscribers only.
Also…
Capture your World in a Sketchbook is a free newsletter.
Your Coffee donations are greatly appreciated, they help to support & motivate me to carry on writing and sharing. Click the link below if you feel like donating a little to support my writing and art support 💚
(Sometimes, I may not be able to trace you back to your Substack name from Kofi but thank you for the generous donations)
Thank you for reading, I’m always happy to hear from fellow enthusiasts in the comments. 👇 Anyway ‘till next time, happy sketching. CJ
Congrats on the youtube, i'll pop over there and follow you.
Thank you so much for the mention, it means so much! 🩷
Cheers to trying new things and being brave enough to share the journey online! I believe that staying curious is what keeps oneself young.