Catching Up With My Sketchbook
and a mishmash of a sketchbook vibes.
Hello Hello!
Hope you are having a lovely start to the week! The past week was a super busy one and I didn’t even get a chance to write anything here, and I’ve missed it!
So today is the day I get back on track, and share a mishmashy post!
As I mentioned last week was a busy one, so much that I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t get to finish a sketchbook page daily for my 100 Day Project. I eventually caught up, but it took a bit for sure.
It was honestly a strange week with unusual interruptions, so I’m not going to let it stop me, because I am really still enjoying the 100 Day Project. Tho I will note that lately its been harder for me to decide “What to Do” daily so there has been a lot of falling back on my classic go tos.
Since I’ve not really done a 100 Day Project Update since March.👀 I would just share some of my personal faves from April so far. I think at the end of everything I will do a full on Sketchbook Tour because I’m actually nearing the end of the current sketchbook!
First up Day 44 & 45. I ended up sketching it all one day and then inking and adding notes the next day.
Sometimes when I don’t know what I want to do I do find grabbing an Ocean book to be super helpful. I usually just flip through it and see what speaks to me depending on the medium I want to use.
I wasn’t sure about these when I did them but now it’s one of my fave pages. Sometimes you just can’t beat an inky sketch with messy lines.
The next page that I really liked was Day 45. I really didn’t know what to do, so I was like obviously shells. SO I doodled a different shell than my go tos. An Alphabet Cone Shell and it was NOT centered - like at all. (For some reason I really struggle with centering in this shape of sketchbook)
So I changed it up and framed the shell with a color blog and then kept going on the other page. I used a mix of NeoColors, acrylic markers, pencils, and my favorite Fudenosuke.
I really love the whole layout, and feel like I want to play with this idea further sometime. Even with this simpler style possibly.
The next so many days, like 46 - 63 I’ve not liked much. 🙈 I feel like the state of the world was really impacting me on a daily basis and it was showing through my art.
I even tried a tutorial to do a spread and that’s not something I do. Though it was fun and came out ok!
There was a whole thing with the “God Squad” trying to get rid of protections for marine life in the Gulf of Mexico, so they can drill for more oil consequence free for the Oil Companies, but with major consequences for everyone else, and our planet.
That kinda came through in this rage powered spread.
I did do some more oceanscapes, but I was actually doing a lot of illustrating during the days on these days, so by the time I got to my sketchbook I think I was just tired, and ready for a break.
That being said I did illustrate some things I really like! So remember earlier in the 100 Day Project I did the Junonia Shell?
Well I turned that into a full on Illustration for a greeting card, and a Junonia Sticker. So all in all I was doing at!
I feel like at the end of the Project I feel like I should take you on a tour of everything that became something more from a random sketchbook page, because that’s truly one of the neatest things in my opinion.
I’ll show you the cards real quick tho, right now they are only available via wholesale.
Of course I overcomplicated the designs a bit and did them on my iPad with a mix of gouache and pastels.
Now Day 57 and all of last week encompassed Earth Day week and wow. I really wanted to write up a super fun/motivating post for the occasion but yeah that didn’t happen.
So I took part in a beach clean up, and got a coffee after, and sketched my POV, and then documented the day of the 2026 Earth Day Clean Up.
After that things got crazy. I learned that that Endangered Species Act was at risk of basically being dismantled on Earth Day and we had about 24 hours to stop it.
SO once I had all of my shop related work done I got busy on making informational pieces to share on socials to help stop the whole thing.
You may recall seeing this!
I shared this along with lots of info and focused on that. Thankfully the amendment that would have wrecked the ESA was pulled due to public backlash and didn’t even get a chance to be voted on. SOOO it actually worked! It’s time like these that remind me why I love social media. The times where we can all truly organize and make a change are just the best.
The rest of the week had a similar vibe. I kept on showing love to our beautiful planet in my sketchbook.
Tried something crazy for me and just doodled fish that were not based on anything, then decided to add some Tombows to my sketchbook supplies and just tested them out, and see how they layer with things.
So it's been a weird few weeks and I’m looking forward to getting back into my more regular routine with my sketchbook, and finding a way to not get stuck in the I don’t know what to do phase.
Well that’s a wrap for this mishmash of a post. We’ll have to catch up soon on the few I don’t have photos of year because its a bit cloudy at the moment.
Hope you are having a great start to the week, and hope me showing you this mess timeline of things encourages you to keep going too even if life got a bit in the way.
Sea Ya Soon!
~Sarah