COLLECTIVE SKETCHBOOK

The Tea & Crayons sketchbook has made it's merry way through towns and cities all over the UK, from Bristol to London to Northampton so I can tell you I was very excited to see an ever so neatly addressed parcel with something heavy inside had made its way to the sleepy village where I live.

I opened it with eagerness and I was thrilled to see a pink note had been left for me from Kay, I originally thought it had been stamped because her handwriting is super neat! It was filled almost halfway with the most beautiful sketches (Rachel's florals and butterflies are gorge), hand written note (which i LOVE), thoughts ( I love Fritha's little notes and cutesy animal illos), receipts, papers, stamps and adorable illustrated bits and pieces. It is precious. So precious that I haven't done anything in it as yet, only carefully stick in Kay's note and draw some tiny hearts, diamonds and lightning bolts around it.

I wanted to share with you some of the gorgeous pages from inside, I'm so eager to fill it in with little illustrations and hand written notes, but I'm even more eager to see what Abby and Rachel will do once they get it! Once it's finished we are hoping to do something special with it. Hope you enjoy looking at these little snippets!

Natasha x

Tea & Crayons Collaborative Sketchbook

I don't know if any of our lovely crayonettes know yet, but us T&C ladies have a humble little sketchbook travelling the UK between our homes. I (Kayleigh) am the third to receive the sketchbook, and as I have been drawing in it this evening I thought it was time that I showed you some pics.

Here's a sneek peek of a page I've been working on, and below are snippets of pages by Rachel L and Fritha (contributors 2 and 1)

I was just writing on my personal blog about how I keep browsing through the sketchbook :) It looks so good so far, and I absolutely love looking through others' sketchbooks. I find it so inspiring, and I often like sketchbook work better than a final piece. It somehow feels more real, true - almost raw...


Anyway, that's our sketchbook so far and I can not wait to see it as it gets progressively thicker with work. I hope you like the snippets I've shown you this evening.

Inspiration: Lynne Chapman

Well, Rachel's post just reminded me of a great illustrator I discovered when I first joined twitter, Lynne Chapman. She too illustrates strangers on her train journeys.

I love the changes in the quality of her line work, as well as the wonderful added colour and writing. It reminds me of some of the tea and crayon's ladies actually!

I hope you like these too, I find them rather inspiring! It shows that practice makes perfect. I think I may try to carry a sketchbook around always, I want to improve my observation skills further!

Inspiration: Ami Underground

After setting the weekly 'Strangers' theme, and knowing my main opportunity to do it would be while on the Tube, I remembered there was an artist I came across a few years ago that did a similar thing.

After much searching through my bookmarks, I remembered it was Ami.Underground and I spent a good while looking through his stuff again.

He spends literally every day drawing these people, on the NY subway, and he's amazing at it. He clearly has no qualms about drawing strangers and the fluidity and immediacy of his sketches are lovely.

Amazing right? Hope you've all had a good weekend, I'll be posting more inspiration stuff soon :)

Rachel L x