Sketchbook tour

I bought an expensive (for me) Baohong cotton sketchbook somewhere and it's been sitting on the shelf waiting for an important occasion or for my skills to improve. Which isn't going to happen, so I used it the way the people on Youtube say you're meant to use sketchbooks - to test ideas, develop a theme, practice things and generally just chill. It was great to do and it's all in one spot now so I can flick back through it. The pages are about A5 size so not huge, but enough to do some mucking about. I started with an internet reference photo and did various ideas of leaves.

Played about with white pen on watercolour background for a while (there are half a dozen variants not shown! It was all a bit the same).

Moved on to marigolds, or possibly flowers that look like marigolds. And from there to flowers generally for a bit.

Foray into fruits and vegetables was next.

Many pages were really just mark-making. 

I bought some new Kuretake Gansai Tambe graphite colours in Melbourne so played with them for a bit.

And finished with a fiesta of watercolour washes - creepy trees, looming mist and ghostly figures. With varying degrees of success.