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My partner B and I have a table in the living room that used to be my grandfather's.  It has a hinged glass top and we use it to display our considerable collection of... stuff?  Childhood memorabilia?  Things from outside?
Anyway, B has this mouse that he has kept in a sucrets tin for many many years.  The mouse was never alive at any point in their relationship, I feel compelled to add.  So B found this mouse when his family lived on a farm; it was long dead, and had dried out so much that all that remained of it was an almost complete skeleton and a partial covering of delicate mouse leather.  It died in a rather elegant position, which B has maintained by carefully protecting it in the aforementioned tin.  And one day I drew it.  So many tiny ribs and vertebrae, what a pleasure..
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Elephant! 11/18/2011
 
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'Terrrrroooooooop! Terrrrrrrooooop!' or whatever sound it is that elephants make...
 
 
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A tomato on the table, an owl in my head.  Helpfully labelled, just in case I forget what an owl looks like.  Thanks, Kelly-from-the-past.
 
 
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I have been keeping sketchbooks since art school, and have accumulated quite a few of them of all different types and papers.  Sometimes I see the beginnings of finished pieces when looking back through them; other times I see images and cryptic notes I have written to myself and wonder what exactly I was thinking. It's good to get your ideas sketched or written out, even if they seem silly or unworkable at the time; you never know when you might be inspired by something you jotted down.  And sometimes, the sketch turns out better than the finished piece...
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     A selection of sketchy-ness from a recent sketchbook.  Though animals are the more common inhabitants of my sketchbooks, occasionally people set up camp in there. 

     I have always felt like I should be keeping some sort of written journal, however they never seemed to last beyond a day or two. I like the idea of keeping a record of my life as it trips along, so it took me a long time to accept the fact that I am just not the journaling kind.  I am, in truth, the sketchbooking kind.  I have filled many sketchbooks over the years, and always like to go back through them and see what I was observing or thinking about way back then.  Sometimes I don't remember drawing certain images, other times images will bring me right back to a very particular day or event.  I try not to be too precious with my sketchbooks, and will draw over old sketches, fill it up out of order, and go back and draw in any empty spaces.  Not so good for chronology, but good for idea development...

I heart my sketchbooks!
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