My sketchbook #2 Call Number

If you happen to be in Brooklyn, you can view my sketchbook:


Dear Mary Stebbins Taitt,

Thanks for sending in your project for The Sketchbook Project: Limited Edition! We just wanted to let you know that your project has now been cataloged into the Brooklyn Art Library! It can be found on the shelves with a call number of 185.17-8. 
If you've already chosen to get your project digitized, you'll receive another email once it's been scanned into the Digital Library. 
Please stay tuned for more details about the project. Sincerely,
The Art House Crew

Art House Co-op
www.arthousecoop.com

This book contains the original sketches for Brave Benny's Animal Alphabet.

Benny and the Porcupines

Benny and the Porcupines

It took me two days to do this one.  I wanted to make Benny and the porcupines both larger, but I have a really hard time figuring out how to do that.  When they are small, it is hard to paint them.  It's also TOO BIG (as they all are) for the scanner, which is not good!  I lose part of the painting when I scan it.  This is the SKETCH.  (the painted sketch, but not the official final).

There is something wrong with this--and with most of these, the scans on this scanner all look washed out and pale.. They don't look like that on paper--that is one of the problems with actual paint as opposed to artrage--getting them digitized so they look right is hard.  Difficult.

Benny and the Kangaroos

Benny and the Kangaroos and koala
acrylic on paper
in sketchbook

gorilla sketch, possible final for Urchin

Gorilla sketch in sketchbook
for Brave Benny's animal Alphabet
9 x 12
mixed media acrylics and pigment markers

Benny and the Urchins
"final?"
5 x 7, watercolor

I am not sure I am done with this and am considering inking the outlines.  See the sketch below (previous post) for comparison and let me know what you think.  The sketches are larger than the paintings--the paintings are 5 x 7 and hard to get much detail (for me).

Benny and the Ferret ((Semi-)final)

Benny and the Ferret
watercolor
5 x 7
on arches cold-pressed 140 lb/300 gm paper

This is my watercolor painting on the actual page of the sketchbook for the sketchbook project for the Brooklyn Art Museum (as opposed to the earlier one which was just a quick sketch.)  In the final final version, I may or may not make a few adjustments.

Benny and the Wolverine

For the Sketchbook Project for the Brooklyn Art Museum.

V is for Vampire

V is for Vampire Bat
5 x 7 on Canson Canvas Paper.
I drew it with markers and then touched it up a little with gouache.
These pages will not be together in the actual book.

E is for Eel.

Benny and the Electric Eel
5 x 7
Copic pen and multiliner
on Canson Canvas paper

I won't be doing this project again--5 x 7 is too small for me to work.

D is for Dinosaur

D is for Dinosaur

For the Sketchbook Project for the Brooklyn Art Library and for Frankie, 5 x 7 Canson Canvas Paper, Copic markers and a touch of Copic multi-liner,  I probably will not do any more 5 x 7 sketchbooks.  My hand isn't steady enough to work that small.  This one is maybe my favorite so far?

Y is for Yeti

I'm making very slow progress on the little book I am making for Frankie and the Sketchbook project.  I find painting in oils on 5 x 7 size canvas very difficult.  I will not do it this way again,

B is for Barracuda

last page of Brave Benny's Animal Alphabet
in the Sketchbook Project Sketchbook for the Brooklyn Art Library
5 x 7, gouache on colored paper

This is the "two-page spread"
only not really because
it's the first and last page and they won't be together.
10 x 7

I FINALLY got another page done.  AK!!!  This is taking so long I may not get it done in time.

Brave Benny's Animal Alphabet Title Page

Slow work through sand.  I just hopefully finished page 3.

Brave Benny's Animal Aplphabet
by Mary Stebbins Taitt
gouache, 5 x 7

For the Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Exchange Round due April 30.

Z is for Zooplankton

For the nerdy baby!

Benny Loves Zooplankton
5 x 7
100% gouache on colored paper

The sheet (not spread, as they will not be together when the book is assembled.)

I was tempted to switch to pens for the lettering, as my hand isn't very steady, but I did it all with pain. I mean paint!

Page 1, Brave Benny's Animal Alphabet Book: Alligators

Slightly revised

Benny and the Alligator, by Mary Stebbins Taitt

I signed up for the next round of the sketchbook project, and since I am planning to take out the horrid paper it comes with, I decided to start right away.  (I ordered a book, but it has not come yet).  I am planning to make a book for my Grandson Frankie, And I painted this in gouache on colored paper.  Looking at it now, I think I might need to work on it a little more. (e.g.:  the shading on the neck and I forgot to paint the fingernails!).  I want to keep it very simple.  Painting the words was VERY difficult for me, my hands are not that steady.  I may try a different "font" style, though that would lead to inconsistencies.

Upside Down

I really wanted Ned to participate in "the Sketchbook Project" with me, so we got him a book. He has a real talent for drawing and I always want him to draw more then he actually feel like. So then of course, the deadline was closing in and I was working on my book, and tried to get him to work on his, but he just didn't want to.

Eventually, we decided to make a collaboration out of that book, and mix Ned's photography with my drawings. Since time was running out, I thought that doing 12 pages in 3 or 4 days would be possible, but then I had the great idea of using tracing paper between each photographic print and do something with the half transparency. Which means - 24 pages instead of 12...

And so he past couple of days were super busy trying to finish it by today, but... it's done! And now, Ned and I are going to walk to the Brooklyn Art library to deliver the book.

Last Day of this Round!

I couldn't sleep last night, I was up with restless insomnia, so I painted the cover of my book--probably a bad idea, since I was tired and out of it.  But the thing has to be mailed today and tomorrow is the deadline for the Kresge Fellowship application which I am also working on.  And the paint needed time to dry.

When I painted it, I didn't realize the little protective cover I had made for the bar code went up as far as it did, and when I peeled off the cover, half my name and date were gone--too late.  Also, I painted the name on while the paint below it was still wet, because I wanted to go back to bed.  Bad plan.  I just left it--maybe I will do bette next time.

Sketchbook Cover
Acrylic heavy body.
(It has LOTS of texture)

Since my book's theme (which I let THEM assign) was the companion book. I made a companion for the white cat (already a companion).  Acrylic heavy body.

Black Cat
colored pencil

Two-page spread

One of the pages I had left had really bad bleed-through, and on previous bleed-through pages, I had tried all kinds of things--pastels (nope, they bled back through the other side), converting the bleed-through into a changed image--some were so bled through that the new image was boringly like the first one, and so on, so this time, I created an images on artrage on the computer, printed it, and pasted it in--last night while up at 2 AM.

"Surf"
artrage on iPad

At the top and the bottom, you can see the bleed-through, but it is worse in the center.  I hate that paper.

and, finally, the inside back cover:

Companion VII, Citrus
Acrylic and colored pencil
Yep, that's my companion

Two of the many moods of Keith.  What looks like dark brown in both images in the scan is actually somewhat shiny antique gold acrylic.

I am not terribly happy with this sketchbook, but it is the first sketchbook I have ever completed entirely on my own.  So, that's an accomplishment and hopefully, I've learned something and the next one will be better.

I did sign up for the next round.  Are you doing it again?

I took a video of the finished sketchbook and am going to try to embed it:

Next Round

I signed up for the next round.  I'm sure we could saved 15-20% if we signed up together, and I should have asked, but I was at the site and just decided to go ahead and sign up.  Please let me know if y'all decide to sign up, too.  And sorry I didn't wait.

I will be continuing this site and I hope y'all or some of you will also continue.

Second to the Last day

Butterfly
colored pencil
a tiny touch of micron pen

Design
Bleed-through remediation
This is the bleed-through from a previous design,r redecorated.

Some of the detailing is pretty subtle and doesn't show up on the scan.

I took a video of the finished sketchbook and am going to try to embed it.

http://youtu.be/n_YzuzZxVJw

Monita Rides Again

Monita the Mannequin
5 x 7. colored pencil

When I got the sketchbook, I was thinking of a nature Journal OR better yet, a children's story, but the paper was so crappy I spent all my time just trying to find a way to do art on it.  I wish I had taken it apart.  Next time, I will know better.  I did this on the bleed through from a pervious page.  I don't have time (too much else to do and not as fast or creative as Aya) to start over now.  (I am applying for a fellowship in poetry and the deadline is the same day and I have a LOT left to do!

Plan B

So then, I decided to use watercolor paper and do the whole thing properly... A while ago I made a whole bunch of small accordion books for a promotion for me and Ned. So I decided to to use the same method. At first I thought about 18 pages, but then, between the tight deadline and seeing how thick 12 pages of heavy watercolor paper fold into, I decided to stick to 12.

I went on with My Andrea's book theme which was Recurring Nightmares.

The coolest thing is that "The Brooklyn Art Library" is about 6 blocks away from my apartment, so Ned and I just dropped the book in person tonight before heading out to dinner!