I miss Sketch Sunday. For those who weren’t reading this blog previously, two years ago I set myself the challenge of doing a sketch every week. I kept it up until I got back from the Tour, but then lost enthusiasm for various reasons. Going to life drawing classes was part of the problem, because I was getting my drawing fix each week that way.

A few months ago I signed up to The Sketchbook Project. Thousands of little sketchbooks are sent out to people to fill, then gathered together and toured around the US, UK and Australia. I chose the theme ‘Stitches and Folds’ because I figured that, even if the sketches I did didn’t relate, at least a sketchbook was essentially folded paper stitched together. (Well, except that it turned out they’re stapled together, but I can fix that since alteration of the books is allowed.)

The sketchbook arrived (and the t-shirt – well, it was a nice colour) but then sat in various places in the studio as I pondered whether to do sketches that were related, or random. There are 32+ pages to fill, so I didn’t want to be doing anything too complicated. I considered drawing magpies. Or stylistic drawings of people wearing voluminous clothing filled in with patterns. Or faces from a reference book of facial expressions. Or drawings done by stitching the pages with thread.

Thinking about the sort of sketching I gravitated to for Sketch Sunday – loose black line work filled in with watercolour – and the need to put off a whole lot of things until after my book deadline, I hit on the idea of a daily sketch of what I wore each day in December. It could include around-the-house casual clothes, fancier outfits worn to Christmas gatherings, gardening and fence-painting duds, refashioning projects and my New Year’s Eve costume. I could write comments, like a little history about garments I made or purchased overseas.

December first came and though the ms wasn’t done I started sketching.

As you can see, I added glitter and some fabric scraps to my glitzed up shoes. But the glitter was rather messy, so after this I decided not to stick things into the book.

I didn’t want to always do the same kind of sketch, so occasionally I’ve drawn clothes tossed onto the bed, or folded.

And occasionally I’ve drawn the clothes as if they were on the body.

After the first sketch it was clear that the paint was showing on the other side of the paper, so I stuck to drawing on the right. Then I realised that meant I had only 16 pages to work on, so pulled the staples out and sewed another 8 folded sheets of paper in. I used plain old printer paper, which is pretty close to the original paper.

After a week or so I realised that I wear t-shirts a lot. It’s put me in a ‘what the heck will I wear?’ dilemma more often, when I usually only have that when I’m dressing up for an event. Also, I usually wear something twice if it didn’t get sweaty or dirty. Don’t want to waste water or power or end up with huge pile of washing to do. But I became really conscious of how this would look in the sketchbook. Do I wash my clothes every time I wear them? Do I let them pile up for a second wear in January? Do I wear them twice and risk the sketchbook being a bit repetitive?

I’ve kind of been doing all three. I’m halfway through the month now, and I’m thinking about more interesting ways to draw the clothing (on a washing line, perhaps?) and hoping the weather warms up a bit so I can wear and draw more interesting summer clothing. With more Christmas parties coming, Christmas itself and a costume party at the end of the year there’s more opportunity for fun.

The band we went to see on Saturday night was Hawkwind. I joked that I was there as Paul’s support act. He’s a long time fan of Hawkwind and was pretty excited to be seeing them again – I think the last time he did was in ’86. I’m more in that ‘don’t love but don’t dislike’ category.

Knowing what concerts can be like (standing in a crowded space for hours) I swapped my usual big, heavy-ish handbag for a small one I call my my gig bag because it’s just large enough for a cd, sharpie for autographs and cash for drinks and snacks. I also packed pain killers, tissues and eye wash, because the reason I’ve only gone to one or two band gigs for every decade of my life is I am very allergic to smoke. At the last moment I slipped in my sketchbook and a pen.

It proved to be a good decision. It kept me occupied while we waited in the queue:

And when the support band, Night Terrors, was on the lights were still bright enough that I could sketch the band. I started from the right, but ran out of room for the fourth band member:

But since he was the most visually magnetic of the group – very tall, lanky, alternating from stunningly skilled feramin playing to wild, rocking guitar – I did a lone portrait of him:

Afterwards I saw he was working the merchandise counter and waited until there was nobody in his queue to ducked over and got him to sign it. He asked me to send him copies, so I emailed the above pics. (Hmm, not that I think of it, I should have signed them, but I don’t usually bother signing my sketchbook pages.)

Hawkwind were very entertaining and Paul had a really good night. But I liked the support band more, and from the comments I overheard the mostly 40+ crowd were pretty impressed, too. And I didn’t need any of the allergy supplies, thanks to non-smoking rules. I had known that laws were coming in but hadn’t yet shaken my long-time habit of avoiding public venues. Hmm, maybe I’ll go see more live music now.

We spent the weekend in Adelaide with friends. They’d been to New Orleans recently, and bought these rusty iron chandelier decorations at an antique store. Good sculptural shapes to draw.

On Thursday, after a big lunch in the city, Paul and I headed to a camera shop he likes. Seeing this park opposite the store I thought ‘Great! Instead of standing in the shop feeling bored, I’ll go do a sketch’. So I settled in and got to work. But within a few minutes Paul was out of the store, and I’d barely got started with the paint. So I finished it in a bit of a rush.

Bet he’d have taken three times longer if I’d gone into the store!