This was a cold month, with snow, frost and grey uninteresting skies; lots of violin lessons, knitting, and zoom calls; parked cars and dirty dishes after a meal. I moved away from the yellow pages of the Tallens Art Creation sketchbook to pure white Stillman & Birn paper and, as the sun started to shine, I began to see the world in colour again.

Another massive book this month. With the same old cars, pictures of my daughter doing homework and dirty dishes after a meal. Over and over. Art from home, in Lockdown.

There are a couple of pages from photos: the cover image is from a picture I took in Zambia twelve years ago. And the two trees on pages 50 & 51 are from last autumn. I love how they politely respect one another’s space. The images from pages 27-25 are from that Internet; they’re much less sketchy. I’m pleased with the quality of my draughtsmanship, but I’m really not inspired to draw from the screen. Capturing views from life is much more interesting, even if its just those same three cars again.

Another bumper edition sketchbook this month. And a very personal one. Some exploratory sketches here, stuff I’d consider sub-standard. Lots of personal content: family and Christmas. Variations on the view from my window, it being lockdown: lots of the Mercedes SLK and the Fiat 500 that park on the street outside. And some experiments with my new Duke 551 Fude nib fountain pen that my wife got me for Christmas, together with a bottle of De Attramentis Document Ink in Urban Grey, and a bottle of the associated fluid to dilute the mixture.

November was a quiet month for sketching. But when got to scanning pages I found more than I expected. You can see from the alternating page layout and colour that they are spread between the little notebook that I used for Inktober and a larger one with hot pressed watercolour paper.

Here are all the Inktober sketches, plus a few extras, and one watercolour.