Working with blue underpainting proved more difficult than the magenta did. Very hard to get cleaner colours for the icing. The extemely subtle colour changes in the cupcake case were very hard to do and not revert to using tiddly brushes.

I’m trying to get myself to do more sketching so this is todays – ok yes, I did it from a photo – excuse? Em….. none!
I remember reading in “Five Quarters of the Orange’ by Joanne Harris about a recipe book, created by the main character’s mother, which is illustrated with little drawings and paintings and the idea captivated me then. And of course it would be a great way to capture my crazy nomadic lifestyle on paper. Since then sketchbook/journals seem to have taken off as an artform and I love seeing snippets posted on blogs. Its a bit like peeking through a window into people’s lives. Not sure I will ever get my sketchbook looking like that but i’ll give it a go! There seems to be as much to learn about creating great sketchbooks/journals as there is to doing any other artwork – mixing media like ink and watercolour, coloured pencils and an abundance of other media. And then there are the sketchbooks themselves! I have moleskines – both waterolour and drawing. And then I’ve seen homemade sketchbooks and I wonder about whether I should try to do one of those. There are whole books written on creating journals. I got some great tips from Billie Crain on putting together a watercolour sketch kit so I will do that tomorrow to take to work with me on Thursday. I already have coloured pencils salted away at work – now all I have to do is put pen/brush/pencil to paper ………………..

Any tips on journalling/sketchbooks welcomed.