Sketchbooks

My niece Samantha Sheehan, and her boyfriend Michael McDermott gave me a beautiful moleskin sketchbook when I was in Napa for my birthday. They're wonderful books because the paper is heavy watercolor stock, and you can paint or collage, and do whatever you want, and it really holds up. Today I was working in the art room at Morristown High School, and I brought my sketchbook with me. There's always something interesting going on there, and I get inspired just soaking up the atmosphere. The last time I was there, about a week ago, I spent a lot of time looking at a beautiful book about Frida Kahlo's journal/sketchbook. Of course, her journal was in Spanish, but it was soooo incredible. Really loose watercolor drawings and her beautiful handwriting. It was jam packed. I've been thinking about working in a new way lately, and wanted to try some stuff out. A sketchbook is the perfect place to experiment. Also, I had recently put together an online portfolio, and want to do some new samples for it. So I thought today would be a good time to fool around a little. I just found some pictures in different magazines, and did some simple watercolor and pencil portraits, and then collaged and did some hand lettering. I'm so tired of computer generated images, and really want to do some stuff that looks hand done. Now I think I may even put in a "sketchbook" page for my portfolio....