A sketch a day. Sometimes less, sometimes more. If you follow me on Instagram alissaduke1 or Facebook Alissa Duke Art, you will have seen these sketches this week..

There are others that are not on social media, and so these will be new. It is interesting to see a week’s sketches next to each other. It is different again to see them in my sketchbook, as you turn the page and a narrative unfolds.

I have used a number of different styles and themes. Yesterday I went back and added the name of the day to the page, bringing them together with some consistency.

I will try and add some notes above each.

Thirty minutes in the park on a lovely Autumn day. Watercolour pencil.

a very quick sketch. I quickly grabbed my Light Purple Pink and Paynes Grey & Cold Grey V grey pencils. I sketched the shape quickly, as they kept moving. I then added heavy colour and then finally more pink to the one bird. I added water from the waterbrush, with a final few marks of pink.

A one hour zoom to listen to Jackie Morris and Delphina at Seven Fables bookshop. (at 5am) The Book of Birds : A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane Jackie Morris. I did not start sketching until the end.

Here is a description from the publisher: The Book of Birds is a compendium of forty-nine bird species, all of which are presently declining or endangered in Britain. With lyrical precision and playfulness, Robert Macfarlane evokes each bird’s habits and habitats –– their patterns of flight and of song, how they hunt and gather, how they nest and raise their young, the stories and myths which attend them, the threats which shadow them, and how their wild lives intersect with our own. And on every page we encounter Jackie Morris’s exhilarating artwork, painted in watercolour and gold and animated by an extraordinary attention to detail and sense of life.

Quick sketch. I started with the main figure and then added others as they came and went. As the main person stayed, I added colour and heavier lines. When I got home, I added water to the page and after it dried, added more of the same colour on top. My final lines were the hair.

Fifteen minutes in a waiting room at a doctors check up (all is ok). I know I had time between tests, sitting in a little cubicle, with old magazines to read, so I sketched.

Traditional Friday night bubbles.

Saturday lunch

More Saturday sketches. In the morning, I started a sketch before my Travel Sketching with Watercolour Pencil class. I then stopped when the class arrived. The blue was a test swatch on the page as we tested the colours.

The pen sketch was at the end of day, waiting for the tram. People came and went.

You can see how a story builds up as each page is added. I have one more page inthe sketchbook before I start Sketchbook 143 since 2008. They are Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook 13cm x 19 cm.

Happy sketching everyone. Please let me know if you have any questions.