Sketchbook #1, hopefully of many...

I keep posting older things, but I have been trying to work on something new as well, the main thing of which being that I've started a new sketchbook! (Another one... I'm notorious for starting sketchbooks, then quickly becoming disillusioned and abandoning them.) One of my major inspirations at the moment is James Jean (check him out at www.jamesjean.com - his work is truly amazing) and I read an interview with him where he said that he aimed to keep up a steady stream of sketchbook work post art school, where new students were supposed to complete at least one page a day and push their boundaries. It sounded like a great idea and hearing it from the man himself was an added incentive! So, here are the first two double spreads:

Left: white pencil, watercolour and scraps on (really nice, although not so scanner-friendly) wrapping paper

Right: blue ballpoint pen (more inspiration from James Jean) and watercolour

Flying fish are incredible - they really look like birds in some of the reference photos I found! The girl is a take on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid", which I admittedly haven't read, but really should do. It's very different from the Disney version...

HB pencil and blue ballpoint pen

Quite a few artists whose blogs I've been looking at take advantage of quiet moments or travelling to draw their surroundings, and I always love those drawings, especially of confined spaces like planes and trains. This was my first attempt at something similar, in pencil, on the plane from Berlin to London. I ran out of time a bit - it's a very short flight! And the blue ballpoint drawing is of the view from my desk at the office in Potsdam in which I usually intern. Hard evidence of what a slacker I am... I definitely need to work a lot harder. I think my co-worker figured out what I was doing though... Busted.

P.S. Apologies for the uneven font on the second page. Typography is evidently not a strong point for me!

G x