Hello! I have decided to get back into my weekly updates here on Substack. I am becoming more and more disillusioned with social media, but find this space on Substack to be less demanding and more meaningful, so here I will be posting more of my work and thoughts, rather than on the meta platforms.
The last 6 months I have been busy focusing on a collab with my sister
and we are really proud of our joint newsletter - The Sketching Sisters where we get to share a monthly challenge and discuss art supplies, techniques etc. If you enjoy sketchbook challenges, please do subscribe and join in with our fun there!
Stamps
During May, I filled a Concertina sketchbook with sketches of Native British Wildlife for the Sketching Sister’s #wildsketchingmay challenge. It was really fun to have a sketchbook dedicated to a theme, and a nice little side project came out of it too! There were a lot of white spaces around the sketches, which I initially thought I would fill with words about the subjects drawn, but in the end I didn’t really fancy doing that for the whole month, so I decided to create some stamps instead!
My first stamp was inspired by the beautiful fig leaves starting to burst out on the tree in my garden, and this led to me thinking about the other leaves in the garden - in the end I made a stamp for Oak, Ash and Eucalyptus to go with the fig, and these filled up all the gaps in the sketchbook nicely!
Above are some prints I made using a Gelli plate folled by stamping over the top - these will make nice birthday cards!
New Ecoline Brush Pens
As usual, some new art supplies have made an appearance on my art desk, my favourite a set of Ecoline Brush Pens, that i’ve been having a lot of fun with!
I bought the pastel brush pen set after attending a workshop with
with special guest, Alice Melvin, who gave a demo of how she draws trees. In the demo, Alice shows how she uses Ecoline brush pens, so of course I had to try this technique too! Her colour palette of brush pens was much more subtle than the existing collection of brush pens I have, so I found a pastel set online which seemed to match better with hers. They work brilliantly for quickly blocking in colour, then you can sketch over the top with ink or colour pencils - here are a few of my experimental sketches trying this out.Illustrated Journalling
I’ve also been dipping into
newest course at Sketchbook Skool - Your Illustrated Life. I have dabbled in illustrated journaling on and off, but haven’t ever managed to sustain a regular practise, so this course is perfect for giving me an inspirational nudge and I am enjoying seeing Danny’s amazing pages from his vast backlog of illustrated journals.I have decided to keep mine simple and low pressure. Much as I was tempted to splash out on a new sketchbook, I decided to keep going in one I had started back in November last year.. It’s just a small 4.5” square Art Creations sketchbook by Royal Talens, so doesn’t take an awful lot of time to fill a page, or even a double page spread.
Here are some recent pages!
Bits and Bobs
I am loving listening to Florence and the Machine at the moment, something very summery about her anthems blasting out on my little portable speaker while I am creating (or doing chores!). Queen of Peace is currently on repeat!
My eldest and I have been watching Fallout - such a unique and quirky show, we have loved it! Interesting to discuss how our world view of what is right and wrong is not necessarily the same for everyone. Also, as bit of a gamer, I have really enjoyed seeing Bethesda Games franchise come alive on the screen!
Speaking of gaming - I have been playing Bethesda’s newest franchise - Starfield. As someone who grew up loving Star Wars and anything to do with Space in films, this is the perfect space adventure game :)
I have also started watching the first series of House of the Dragon - I know I am a little bit late to. this party, but I still haven’t even watched Game of Thrones, so figure I may as well start here! Looks good so far!
And finally…!
Thank you for reading this far!
Find me on Instagram - Emma Cavill Sketches and as one half of The Sketching Sisters
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