Failing Upwards

This is my third attempt at a doodle book. The first two attempts (Doodle Anatomy Sketchbook and Doodlecillin) were destroyed when I attempted to pour ink onto the pages. I learned a lot of what I could do or not do through these attempts and hope that this third attempt actually works and I get a nice doodle book at the end.

Learning Through Failure

And the main thing I've learned here is that the Canson Graduate mixed media sketchbooks just can't handle that level of wetness. Ink pours and heavy water washes (watercolor or ink) will heavily warp the pages no matter what else I try to do to stop it. The Canson Graduate sketchbook isn't a watercolor sketchbook, and while it has heavy (200gsm) paper, it's just not made for heavily wet applications.

So, after a lot of thought, I decided to rebuy the sketchbook I'd ruined twice before (the Canson Graduate) because it offers a lot of what I need for my doodles and other dry media...I just can't do heavy water applications in it. But I also got a second sketchbook, a Flunbrato Watercolor Sketchbook I really like using my Liquitex Acrylic Inks and Bombay India Inks, so I was sad that I couldn't do that ink wash technique again. The Flunbrato sketchbook is 100% cotton and is designed for watercolor paintings, so I figured it would work (ref. Flunbrato Watercolor Sketchbook First Impressions).

Age Old Sketchbook Problems

Sketchbooks are a recent passion of mine. I've always wanted to keep sketchbooks but never did because Id idn't feel "good enough" to use them. Which is CRAZY because sketchbooks are supposed to be ap lace of practice and learning. Most of what's darwn in sketchbooks are not works of art (unless you're an art influencer), but even my sketching skills sucked so bad that I hated seeing them...which is why I never practiced in the first place.

But there was another major reason I avoided sketchbooks....because I'd never found a sketchbook that could take ALL the various mediums I wanted to use and the way I wanted to use them. Very few sketchbooks handle my doodles well because most paper doesn't react well to a lot of ink (and my doodles take a lot of ink). I found that paper that could handle my doodles, didn't usually handle water well, so I couldn't paint. But I love combining watercolor (or other color media) with my doodles. I could usually find either a book that handled fine liners well by keeping lines crisp even after thickening the doodle lines, OR a book that handled wet media well...but I never found a one that handled BOTH well. So I'd start sketchbooks and never finish because I didn't JUST want to use alcohol markers, or watercolor, or fine liners. I am a mixed media artist through-and-through, just didn't feel good enough to work the way I wanted to or use the more expensive supplies that could help.

This is actually why I love Bee Paper Super Deluxe Paper. It handles Uni Pin Fine Liner (my main fine liners) so well, and while it was thinner paper (98lb) than traditional watercolor paper, it handled watercolor surprisingly well (25% cotton and it shows!). Most color mediums also work on it and look better than any other paper or sketchbook I have. The problem with Bee Paper products is that their sketchbooks only come in spiral binding. The metal wire of spiralbound causes a lot of sensory issues in me.

But I finally broke through those mental barriers and improved my sketching skills to the point where using sketchbooks feels useful. And I have so much more knowledge and experience on how various media work that I can figure out the best way to complete projects (even with lots of failure).

Naming Conventions

Doodle Anatomy Sketchbook was named such because I was examining and reflecting on my doodle use and structure. It was like an examination of my doodle practices.

Doodlecillin was named to stay with the medical theme that I established in Doodle Anatomy. Doodlecillin treated doodles like medicine (cuz they are). I dove deep into this theme initialy but didn't get to generate more after I destroyed the Doodlecillin sketchbook.

Now I have TWO new sketchbooks to name. Do I theme them medical like the others? Do I do something new? Are they two completely separate projects???

I always try to change what I’m doing if I continuously fail at something. I decided to go away from the medical theme as it felt cursed at this point. After a few days of thinking, I decided to go with a scientific name for animals I like. Since there are two sketchbooks I figured I could name one after a frog (wet - watercolor sketchbook) and one after a toad (dry - doodle sketchbook). A quick Wikipedia search taught me a lot about frogs and it helped me name my books.

Anura

“Anura” is the name for the order of amphibians we typically call frogs. Frogs have been one of my favorite animals for a very long time. I thought it would be a fun connection to my books.

Hey, did you know that “toads” aren’t really a thing? Apparently, they’re ALL frogs!

“The use of the common names frog and toad has no taxonomic justification. From a classification perspective, all members of the order Anura are frogs, but only members of the family Bufonidae are considered "true toads". The use of the term frog in common names usually refers to species that are aquatic or semi-aquatic and have smooth, moist skins; the term toad generally refers to species that are terrestrial with dry, warty skins.”

- Source: Wikipedia, para. 6

This is where I got the name “bufonidae” (i.e., the dry toads) that I applied to my mostly dry-media “doodle book” (eventually named Doodle Bufonidae). I found another frog family on that Wikipedia page named “hylidae” (i.e., the wet tree frogs) that was the name sake for my mostly wet media “watercolor journal” (aka. Doodle Hylidae).

A Thought About Starting Over

Starting over is my MO. Maybe it’s because I’m a millennial (or blame it on my ADHD), but I feel like I’ve restarted my life a dozen times. This pattern exists all throughout my life. I tend to restart video games over and over. I really like the act of building and figuring things out…it’s the maintaining consistency I have trouble with. Once I get far enough in a video game where things are way easier, I start to get bored. Same thing for my art. So restarting sketchbooks doesn’t phase me. And honestly, it makes a LOT of sense. But I really do hope this is the final iteration of this doodle book(s) project.