Changing How I Keep a Journal

It has been forever since I last posted.  Maybe that is an exaggeration; but it has been about ten months.  I never intended to go that long.  Life has been busy.  Good busy.  Now the fall rains are coming and I'm wanting to get back to posting -- maybe twice a month.

My header art reflects a major change in how I journal -- and that will be the focus of this post.  Over forty years ago I started keeping a journal in black, hardbound blank books ... words and sketches.  In recent years I've been disappointed with the paper that comes in similar hardbound books. It warps whenever I use watercolor.  Good paper comes in expensive books.  So, in recent years I have been keeping both a 'black book' and an Aquabee sketch book.  But that is a nuisance.  I'd rather keep more of my words and sketches together.

Not using a 'black book' feels a little like saying "Good Bye" to an old friend, but I am looking forward to having better paper to paint on.  I haven't been doing as much 'sketchbook painting' as I'd like during the past couple of years.  Hopefully switching books will get those juices flowing again.

It was almost a month ago that I made the switch.  The little trumpeter at the top of the page is a metal sculpture found at the butterfly gardens in Elkton, Oregon.

... and here are some more sketches done during the past month.  Some are started totally 'in the field'; some are started in the field and finished at home; and a few are drawn from my laptop photos after I got home.

Three Double-crested Cormorants on a Log 

I love watching brown pelicans flowing low over the Pacific.  They just barely skim the water, dipping into the trough between waves, and rising up again to just miss the next incoming wave.

A great blue heron perches in a tall tree waiting for the tide to go out at Charleston Harbor.  Soon it will be able to forage along the exposed shoreline.  

A black-tailed deer fawn pauses and looks at me.  In September some have already lost their spots, but not this one.

After a month of doing all my journaling in an Aquabee sketchbook, I'm happy to see the juices are flowing......

And here is a full page -- words and art togther in my new Aquabee journal: