Such · a · pretty · girl · Happy · in · an · ugly · place

Nice to know I didn’t even make it a month into my whole “I’m going to update once a week” thing. Not to make excuses, but it was purely because of my frantic completion of my sketchbook for the sketchbook project. It was due out Jan 31st, and I (just barely) made it. I was working on it up until the minute I left to run it to the post office.

I’m sure I mentioned it before, but my theme was “prehistoric”. I treated my sketchbook like spreads, and each spread had a different time period on it. In order:

1. The singularity (before the big bang)
2. The big bang (explosion, creation of stars, formation of rocks)
3. Formation of the solar system
4. The molten earth & newly created moon with sun and planets in the background
5. Rain comes to the molten earth and forms bodies of water
6. Molecules form in water and form DNA
7. DNA begins to self replicate
8. An ameoba-like cell ingests an organelle (Which is how it’s believed mitochondria entered cells. My drawing features an interpretation of a ribosome, a subtle nod to my husband’s research)
9. The Cambrian explosion
10. First amphibians on land
11. Triassic period
12. Jurassic period
13. Cretaceous period
14. Dinosaur solemnly watching the comet impact
15. Rise of the mammals (featuring our dog, Gordon: Dinosaur’s Bane in the foreground in front of T. Rex bones happily gnawing away)

It also featured a pocket with a ton of business cards and some QR codes that will hopefully lead people to here, my portfolio site, or various social media outlets.

The sketchbook is a mix of woodless colored pencil and regular colored pencil. Which was, admittedly, not the media of choice for quick sketchbook work.

I realized about a week before it was due that I was only halfway completed. It was, in all ways, a hopeless mad dash to the finish. I had to abandon my original idea of sculpting the book to look like a dinosaur head due to time constraints. I ended up covering it with lime green scale-embossed paper, which works just as well.

My main regret is that my coloring was rushed in places and not my best work. But I feel like the sketchbook project is in a lot of ways like Nanowrimo, it’s not meant to be perfect, just an exercise in doing. I’m just happy that I finished!

Oh nos, Mr. dinosaur!

For those wanting to see the books, the tour begins in April. Full dates are here. My book is also being digitized, which I’ll link to once it happens. I had quite a few friends partaking in the sketchbook project and I’m excite to see everyone’s work when it comes to Atlanta in August.