My 2023 Sketch Highlights

1- COVER:

I hand painted the cover of my sketchbook as a reference to the game Red Dead Redemption 2. However instead of doing Arthur’s head, I did a cuban tree frog (an invasive species in florida). I was playing a lot of RDR2 at the end of 2022/start of 2023 due to being unemployed 💀. But I wanted to put my own spin on the cover of the game.

2- DOODLES OF ME:

This might sound a little conceited, but I love to draw myself and incorporate things I enjoy into the page. The style of how I draw myself varies from how I am feeling, so pages like this are really fun to look back on to see how i was feeling and what things I was into at the time.

(my first manga was devil and her love song, my sister also cut out pages of it without my permission and I was fuming since it is literally impossible to find this series anymore.)

3- FOOD:

(I accidentally covered up a doodle…)

I was a big foodie this year. My boyfriend and I have definitely experimented with a lot of foods since moving in together, so I wanted to draw a lot of the stuff we had made. Featuring my favorite sauce.

(I made the little shrimp out of these heart stickers that I had stuffed away with all my miscellaneous art supplies)

4- ANIMALS:

This is a little bit more recent (Fall of 2023). We had relocated to the Midwest to stay with my grandmother for the year. We have a neighborhood fox that I have caught glimpses of, however I could never see him long enough to sketch him, so he is freehanded and expressive.

5- MASHUP DOODLES:

Lots of Pinterest inspo. I was going for y2k color scheme but didn’t really enjoy how the girl turned out—nonetheless this is still one of my favorite pages.

6- FISH:

This is a bung of stock photos from the interner of fish. I always enjoy drawing animals and eggs, There are some funky images in there but the Nautilus is definitely my favorite on here.

7- GIRLS FROM PINTEREST:

I have a folder filled with models/aesthetic girls on pinterest In a few pages there is the burnt match, I don’t know why but i like to put it on a lot of angsty pages in my sketchbooks. I have been playing around a lot with hatching and highlights in pencil. this is a WIP page but i wanted to include it

8- MOST RECENT (UNICORN):

This is my first shot at a full detailed graphite drawing. I want to put out there that I used to work in watercolors and mixed media but I haven’t done anything exclusively in traditional drawing pencils (i usually use mechanical). Some people argue that its the same thing but I felt a genuine difference in the quality of my sketches especially when you use H and B.

9- DIPPING INTO OLD INTERESTS (DRAGON):

Back to when I drew with traditional pencil, I was super good at drawing monsters and dragons, since my battle with depression I have lost a lot of interest in things I love, but these last few months I dipped my toes back into monster drawing and I am so proud of how he turned out so far.