The long and narrow sketchbook

Right before the Wuhan Flu curtailed my shopping, I went out to Hyatt, the great art supply store that happens to be just a couple of minutes from my house, and I bought a bunch of sketchbooks. That was smart, you know? Anyway, one of the sketchbooks was long and narrow.


It is Strathford and made of recycled paper. It is just cheap lightweight sketch paper and it cost $6 something.

This is turning into the best $6 something I ever spent in my life!

I am having so much fun with this sketchbook. When I bought it it was with the thought that it would make me see new possibilities in what was before my eyes. I would make it a game to find scenes that lent themselves to these new dimensions.

And it has worked out that way! It has been fun!

There are 50 sheets in the sketchbook and I think I have done 22 drawings so far. I have not torn one sheet out of the book, either. Not that I forbid myself to, it just has not happened.

Because the paper is so lightweight, or because I am not thinking commercially, I take a very relaxed approach with these drawings.

Here is the police radio station in Delaware Park.

I drew that yesterday. It was chilly but the sun was out. After that I sketched the little golf course kiosk, closed because of the virus. Notice now I have on gloves.

Then I thought I was going home but stopped to draw people hanging around outside the closed zoo, by the shuttered Cup & Cone.

The other day I drew the Cyclorama Building downtown. That is it at the top of the post!

 When I am through drawing something it is traditional for me to page through the whole sketchbook and review my work. I am doing more "serious" stuff in between these but I have to tell you this, these narrow sketches are a lot of fun.



I have done a million of them in Delaware Park. I had thought I had sketched everything there was to sketch in Delaware Park but this book opens up a lot of new possibilities. I'll have to post more of the Delaware Park pictures. There are about a dozen of them, I want to say.

I have done a lot of tall pictures too, not just long pictures. I can't wait to show them off.

I will have to do a Long and Narrow Sketchbook Tour!