Crafty Crusaders: Canson Art Book 180

Thursday 23 April 2015

Canson Art Book 180

Today I wanted to share with you some of my "unfinished" projects :)

Recently, I have been thinking about, all the glorious joys that the internet holds we can sometimes get into a comparison trap where we feel like our art, our life "should" be like all the lovely finished works and photos of friends we see online. The reality that sometimes life/creativity isn't all polished and finished and that's ok.

Coloured Pencil

One thing I have also discovered as a creative person, it's very VERY important that you have time for creative play, you don't have to take your ideas all the way everytime. It's ok to play dressups with your materials and ideas and try them on for a while, and when you don't feel like it anymore you can take them off :)

Play with your materials and see how they pan out, just being in that zone of play this is an important part of fullfilling your creative side and you should be enjoying this time rather than being frustrated about it not working, sometimes I find I have to remind myself of that.

I try to everyday, just randomly sketch in my sketchbook, lately I have been using the Canson Art Book 180 and just playing with a variety of materials, pen, pencil, Mepxy Markers, Watercolour & Coloured Pencils, just for the joy of doing something creative but also for the experience of seeing how the materials behave for me.

This sketch book has a lovely hard cover and the bindings just feel lovely, this makes for good sketching when you are relaxing on the lounge and you need a solid surface to work on.


Light watercolour washes

The paper whilst this is not a mixed media book, i found stands up ok with a light wash of watercolour with my waterbrush.

One of the joys just having a open book like this is that you can just pull out whatever you feel like doing at the time and being in a book you don't have to worry about
not always having a completed work. Its ok to come back later.

Unlike an art journal, which i also love to do i find just having a plan sketchbook can help with my ideas, as my art journals are more about expressing feeling and a story where this for me is just about play.

So whilst this isn't a completed project for you all to finish I hope you still enjoyed this post, I just wanted to share the book which I highly recommend and encourage you to just create. Even if its just a couple of scribbles in a book like I have shown here, its all still being creative, each drawing will take you to another drawing and another. Its not about always finishing a glorious piece its just about doing.