Back to every day life and more daily teacups

After all the great inspiration and new ideas and technique from the workshop in Vaxholm, of course I just wanted to take my art journal out and start playing. But my energy level is  extremely low at the moment, and I needed the weekend to just relax and catch up on sleep after my late flight home last Tuesday and straight back to work on Wednesday. I am slowly learning to listen to my body, and to not feel guilty for not doing anything when I need to slow down and rest. But although I didn't get as busy as I would have wanted to, I still got a bit of something done.

I did this little sketch while in Stockholm, and finally added the lettering. There are loads of sausage huts and stalls every where around town, and even in the tiniest kiosk, you can usually get a grilled or cooked sausage. For me, when in Stockholm, a grilled sausage is a must. As are cinnamon rolls, mint krokant chocolate, and bags and bags of sour sweets...

I also finished this sketch that I did earlier this month, in a new sketchbook that I found in a local art shop. It's by AMI Art Material International, a brand that I didn't know, and it has 180g/m2 watercolour paper. The paper is smooth on one side, and has a bit of a strange texture on the other, sort of lines ridges. But it's bound so that you always have the same surface on both pages, left and right, so that you can have a double spread with the same texture. It is landscape format, as usual, but with approx. 20,5x14,5 cm slightly wider than the Moleskine watercolour journals, which I always find just a bit too narrow.

Another little sketch I did while in Stockholm. There's a shop called Pen Store in Södermalm, and of course I had to go and check it out. Pens, pens, pens, and some gorgeous notebooks too. Wonderful. Of course I had to by some pens... and sketch them...

I'm also back to my (almost) daily tea cup drawing. I'm trying a new approach to drawing them, and I think I might finally get the hang of it eventually.

It's not just all tea cups in my sketchbook, though. I just loved the pattern and colours of this pear. I have one box of all kinds of pens and some coloured pencils just in browns and greens, because I love those colours so much for drawing.

I finally got one of those blue Caran D'Ache photo pencils, and tried it out in a little abstract sketch in my Moleskine. I was a bit disappointed that the blue was still visible after scanning or taking photos, but of course, as usual, I hadn't read the instructions properly. It doesn't shop up when you scan or photocopy it in black and white only. Which is rather nice, actually. Because it means you can have it both ways. Scan it in colour to see it, and in black and white to make it disappear. And it's a nice blue anyway.

I didn't do much art journaling, but I have started a new art journal. I'm using a bright pink Leuchtturm 1917 sketchbook for this, which is slightly wider than a Moleskine. I've only got as far as a first couple of layers of background on the first two pages, but hopefully, I'll have more to show next week. As well as some more photos from Stockholm. I just didn't get round to any editing this week.