Haircuts and Sketchbooks

I went to the art shop yesterday, to stock up on a variety of paper so that I can show you how different media looks on different paper. But of course, you can't go to an art shop and only buy what you went for. I managed to resist the nifty timber box identical to the one in the Holbein Sumi Suzuri painting kit pictured, but I did get a gorgeous Chinese ink stick (covered in gold and silver printing, in a box with a glass lid!), a Japanese brush to go with it, a small box of pastels, and a little square-format Daler-Rowney sketchbook.

I admit I already have a mostly-empty sketchbook, since my 'sketch a day' new year's resolutions fizzled.... but well, that one was too big to fit in my handbag. This little square one will fit nicely, so I can carry it absolutely everywhere, so.... at the hairdressers (gray takes a LONG time to hide!), waiting to pick up the kids from school.... its sketch time! (Hey! I heard that snicker.... well at least my intentions are good!). But this time, I'm not going to make any promises about showing them. That way I won't worry about whether they are any good or not. I think that's important, that you feel comfortable to just 'go for it' in your sketchbook - after all, drawing in those lovely white hardbound pages can be daunting enough without worrying about a potential audience. So I have to just get stuck into it. Kind of like a friend of my dad's who drove his brand-new car through a barbed-wire fence. He said that after that, he could stop worrying about scratching it!

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