Kimberly McGuiness Releases New Sketchbook!

 

Gotta love Kimberly McGuiness' sense of humor! And you have to love her new sketchbook! This 8.5" square book has 120 pages where you can bring your creativity to life. I was fortunate to beta test this book and I want to show you how I put my copy of Yes This is a Friggin' Sketchbook to use. 

This is what the pages look like - a book full of double spreads for you to work your magic on. The floral designs at the outer corners are for you to test your art tool to see how it interacts with the paper. The cream colored pages are smooth and take pen really well. The one concern I had was the weight of the paper. I know from experience that Kimberly has no control over the paper weight. Kindle uses just one kind of paper for this type of book. The book description tells us right up front the pages are a 50 - 61 pound weight, depending on what country your copy is printed in. 

I figured the best way to tell what the paper could take was to just jump right in! I went to the very back of the book and used one of the last pages to test the pens I normally use. 

I pulled out every pen I usually tangle and draw with and wrote out a sample line with each. This gave me an idea of how each item worked on the paper. They all worked great! Great flow on the smooth paper, and I knew some would ghost or bleed through to the back. I just didn't know how much 

until . . . 

. . . I looked at the back side of the page. Not bad, not bad at all. The two that definitely ghosted and somewhat bled through would do the same in pretty much any book. The Sharpie pens. But I was happy with everything else, so I just went for it. Kimberly's description tells us this is a 'dry media' kind of book. But you know me. I have never been one to follow the rules. I just look for ways to break them. 

I do a lot of different kinds of art, using various mediums. And this particular day I was feeling like neurotangling. I used a Tombow mono drawing pen to place all my lines.

Then I brought in my Uni-ball Eye Micro to make all those corner fills. This is a heavier ink and I was curious to see how it handled the paper. 

As I worked toward completing this page, I used a couple Ecoline Brush Pens to add the bits of color. 

On the reverse side you can see some ghosting with the blue and some with the orange. But all in all not bad. I can still  use this side of the page to make art. And I did exactly that. 

I began by tracing the rectangle outer lines of the art from the previous page. I wanted to focus on that blue section that formed the body of the bird. Grabbing a couple Daniel Smith watercolor sticks that came in Saturday's mail, I added a little blue, a little yellow and a very little teal in random spots. Using a water brush, I was able to push the color around a bit. Once my page was dry I added some tangles once again using the Tombow mono. Both sides of the page have art, they both compliment the other and the paper held up to this double-sided experiment just fine! 

I was happy with that experiment so I moved on to tangling. For this I used a Zensations Technical Pen from Zebra Pen. This sketchbook is so easy to work in. By opening the book to the page you want to work on and pressing your thumb down the center fold, you get a book that stays open while you work on a page. 

I finished this page up with a graphite pencil, a tortillon for shading and a Posca Paint Pen for highlights. Smooth tangling and the back of the page looks great! 

Yes, Kimberly lists this as perfect for dry media, so I figured I should try that. Hahahaha! Sort of. Oops! I used an Archival ink pad and stamp to get the image of this adorable fish! My color came from Arteza watercolor pencils. I don't do pencils well, so I colored first. Then I used a water brush with most of the 'wet' wiped off and went over the color to smooth my choppy coloring. Worked great! I couldn't ask for better!

For one last project I turned to collage art. I do this a lot lately. I enjoy putting all the little scraps together and making it look like something pretty. One thing I love about this book is the square shape. Perfect for Instagram posts! Hahahaha! And I love how this page turned out!

Yes This is a Friggin' Sketchbook can be used for all your art projects. Easily portable for on-the-go art making and at a price everyone can afford! 

You can read more about Kimberly McGuiness' new book and grab your own copy by clicking here. Now, I need to go complete a few more pages in my awesome sketchbook!