It’s been some time since I’ve talked about my annual sketchbooks on here!

Truth be told, I very nearly wrote another post about something dealing with The Dark Crystal but I thought, you know what, let’s save it and take a look at my sketchbook for this year. (I mean, I could probably talk about The Dark Crystal for ages but it has pretty well dominated my posts for this year, hasn’t it?)

Since 2008 I’ve put together an annual sketchbook.

Very few copies of the early ones exist (and what copies remain are surely lost to the wind). The scans, if indeed they are still around and at all readable, lie in repose entombed within some dusty, forgotten hard drive in my studio. 2008. 2009. 2010. However, in 2011 I hit on the idea which was to claim the foreseeable future. With The Hidden People, I planned a series of new work on a theme and I built out an entirely new collection on that theme. Since that sketchbook, I’ve approached my personal work with a mind towards creating a series every year.

2018 saw the first anthology, Visions of Whence, which collected the first of five themed sketchbooks, The Hidden People, Menagerie, Lyrebird, Studies from the Wilder Forest, and Wanderings.

If you’re keeping track, yep, I’m off a year now! The anthology doesn’t count as new sketchbook but it did dominate all my free time that year. Still, I had planned a 2018 sketchbook and in fact began work on it late last year.

Well, here I find myself in 2019 and I’m nearly, nearly done with my 2018 sketchbook. It’s over 3/4ths of the way there so, you know, actually not done yet. Undaunted, once I wrap this one up I plan to jump right into the proper 2019 sketchbook (indeed, 2018 and 2019 sketchbooks are a Part I and Part II so it should be a natural step).

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything from it, though I have been steadily working on it. Here’s a peek at some of what I’ve been up to:

As I’ve had since 2015 with Wanderings, the collection includes a mix of toned paper and white charcoal drawings along side brown Col-erase pencils sketches (and finished drawings, of course). There are a variety of fairytales represented in this sketchbook. The examples here are from Snow White and the other unrelated Snow White story, Snow White and Rose Red.

Here’s hoping that next time I check in with you on Muddy Colors it’s to say that I’ve wrapped up the collection and I’m on to the actual 2019 sketchbook.

Wish me luck!