Introduction

Although I love sketchbooks and have a whole bunch of them (even selfmades), I still don't do much experimental stuff. Mostly I draw outside or in exhibitions, but this is not inventing something new and I don't think of it as "art". So I found it's time to try something else.

Day 1

I took the smallest sketchbook I could find just to experiment. Choosing blindly I ended up with a set square and a long eraser. As "color" I choose a 7B pencil. Then I moved the set square over the paper to guide pencil and eraser. I was surprised at the outcome: It was of course very graphical, but interesting. Normally using a set square in my drawings would be a no-go. And since I love small animal stickers a little panda had to enter the picture.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 1 - student project

Made a second one.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 2 - student project

Day 2

I blindly picked the 7B pencil from yesterday and a roung brush. The magic bowl said "Faces". My favorite part was drawing the green ink lines with the round brush because it felt funny and scratchy. Also coloring the faces in silly colors like blue was fun.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 3 - student project

Day 3

The dice said four minutes. Then I chose my "brush" and ended up with a bone folder. I chose a second time and got a green fineliner. I was so surprised about the bone folder that I completely forgot about the magic bowl telling me a subject. I just took three small papers, set the alarm clock to "4" and started folding. The green sketching was within the four minutes. Glueing the figures to the paper with pigment glue and dark green pigment powder was after the time.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 4 - student project

That is my picture:

Experimental Sketchbook - image 5 - student project

Day 4

My fortuneteller said "bathroom" and I had picked a normal brush and a colored pencil. "De Gaulle didn't have a clue." So I took a sepia china ink and moved all the stuff onto the dryer in the bathroom. Then the dice gave me one minute. I could only roughly draw a male face looking a bit confused, a hand write a small text to tell it's de Gaulle and color the hand blue. Then the time was over.

I was surprised at how short one minute was and it felt a bit strange doing this in the bathroom. Such a preparation for such a small and short artwork. Here it is.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 6 - student project

While waiting for the subway I also did a small sketch from an advert for the local zoo which showed a globefish. So I would say this course already changes my art behaviour. Hooray!

Experimental Sketchbook - image 7 - student project

Day 5

Turns out that I will be making art for 12 more days in this project.

So here is todays work.
Topic (word from newspaper): award show
Time: 5 minutes
Material: Brush, charcoal, ballpen and I chose watercolors to the pen.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 8 - student project

Day 6

I got two minutes for a place I would like to go to and had a glass drawing pen, a brush (I didn't use in the end) and china ink.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 9 - student project

Day 7

Characters in 6 minutes with fine liner and pencil.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 10 - student project

Day 8

5 minutes transportation with writindg pen. With this I wanted to extent time or do it again because it looks very scetchy.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 11 - student project

Day 9

This time the topic came from my friend who said flies. I didn't have a time limit so I just drew flies until the page was full. I hope the photo is sharp.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 12 - student project

Day 10

This time it was wind and I felt like ignoring the one minute I had rolled with my dice. I had chosen a ball pen and a grey colored pencil. But being in the process I also took a dark brown, a sanguine and a white charcoal.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 13 - student project

Day 11

This time it was "song lyrics" and I chose a line from the song "The beginning and the end" from the british band "Fanfarlo" which I can sincerely recommend :-). The text is "send it all back to the Rockefeller trust" and it makes totally no sense to me in this song. The man is Zoroaster who is sailing the caspian sea and I always imagined him with his ship full of stuff he has to take back to the Rockefeller Trust.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 14 - student project

Day 12

Somehow I gave up choosing a time limit. I just draw the topic until the page is finished. Today tipping a page in the newspaper said opera singer.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 15 - student project

Day 13

This time it was construction site what I see in front of me. I had a pencil and a blue fine liner and after a while I took a black fine liner for contrasts. After finishing I decided to color it a bit.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 16 - student project

Day 14

This isn't the "real" Sketchbook Magic drawing, but something that came to my mind reading newspaper about the Brexit promoting politicians that seem so surprised now.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 17 - student project

This is the real picture of Day 14. Just a quick sketch of the famous roof of Olympiastadion Munich which was build for the Summer Olympics in 1972.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 18 - student project

Day 15

Tomorrow will be the last of my extra 12 days. Of course I could go on with this class project, but it feels ended. So I enrolled in Sketchbook Magic II and am looking forward to making a project there. I will go on making at least small sized art, but this project helped and motivated me to really get it done. It also gave me the courage to start teaching my own classes, so I will have more creative stuff to do. And it magically made me do some everyday things I might not have done without this class.

This days picture is watersoluble crayon and pencil while watching the famous german scientist and astrophysicist Harald Lesch talking about terraforming Venus (and the nonsense of this idea).

Experimental Sketchbook - image 19 - student project

I made a second one later during the video: A planet 41 light years away around the sun Cancri 55. The planet is 8 times as heavy as Earth and twice as big, mostly made of carbon. It is so near to its sun that its temperature changes between 1000 and 2700° Celsius which is causing huge vulcan eruptions (5000km high). It is strongly believed that its material is either mostly graphite or diamant, but partly liquid.
Imagine diamant vulcan eruptions 5000 km high! - I can't.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 20 - student project

Day 16

Last day. I wanted to go back to the beginning, but the first picture with this pencil and ruler technique still is the best.

Experimental Sketchbook - image 21 - student project

I really enjoyed this class project. it was nice to have some consistency in the process. Thank you ever so much, Ria!

Charlotte Erichsen

Is art better than chocolate?

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