I finished my little yellow sketchbook in August. It had 64 pages that took me 8 months to fill, which is remarkable given my propensity for not finishing things, so I've had a post about it cooking since then. I've been trying to turn it into content, like a self-help or instructional article or something, but I realized that I filled the book up so fast precisely because I wasn't trying to make content. This post will be stream-of-consciousness drivel instead. Happy end of Inktober!

We all like to talk about drawing "for ourselves" around these parts. I've supposedly been drawing "for myself" for a long time, but online validation used to be one of my strongest motivators for making art. I drew a lot of stuff because I was hoping it would do numbers on whatever social networking website I was using. But it was still "for myself" because I totally would have drawn all that anyway... right?

Making art is more intrinsically fulfilling for me now. Most of the drawings in this sketchbook haven't been shared here, and I've been working in my new books for the past few months without posting anything about them. I share stuff here because I enjoy talking about the process or context behind it, but I don't expect anyone to see it. The mere act of making a mediocre blog post is enough to make me feel like I have valuable things to say.

I used to be anxious about ruining my sketchbooks, but these days I'm more anxious to finish them so I can experiment with a new one. I even started drawing random filler just to use up more pages (I later came to understand this is called using the book as intended).

I got two free Daniel Smith dot cards (36 dots total) from a friend in Urban Sketchers Boulder. I like the idea of Dan Smith paints, but I don't have the inventory space or budget to buy all the colors I like. The dot cards give me the opportunity to have fun with weird colors without going bankrupt! I thought about different ways to make the dots portable before settling on the extremely low-tech option of cutting the dots up and taping them into a mint tin. (As we know, I do love me a mint tin)

Daniel Smith carries a lot of interesting colors, especially in the way of earth tones. I've been married to the same set of primaries-plus-green for a while, so I decided to try branching out a little by putting together a fall palette.

September was a busy month for sketch meetups. I went to both Boulder meets in addition to the Fort Collins one since they didn't overlap this time! I keep telling myself I'm going to discuss each of these outings in separate posts and never do, so I'm throwing them into one post so I can stop being so behind. The overarching theme was cool buildings.

The first meetup of the Urban Sketchers Fort Collins chapter was in August. I was surprised there wasn't one already when I started looking for groups last year. I would have done it myself, but me starting a recurring social group??? In this economy??

This group has a different energy from the Boulder one because some people have been bringing their kids! Which is awesome! More kids should go on art outings. Also, I brought my dog and everyone was a big fan.

Of course our first meeting was in Old Town Square. I've drawn in the square many times already, so I split off to walk up the street and find a building I haven't worked with yet. I picked one that I've thought a lot about drawing without actually getting around to it... the architecture is neat and there's a horse in the window. I tried using watercolor crayon to add some brick texture and am happy with how it turned out!

The lunar eclipse on August 27 was almost completely visible in Colorado. My phone photos of it came out predictably awful, so I sat outside and drew it with a flashlight as it progressed.