In March-June 2020 I created a sketchbook full of art made from odds and ends I had saved. The book has no words, just pictures. I am showing you the whole book, two facing pages at a time. The book was finished in June. I made it to help myself feel better as I passed through the early days of the pandemic.
Here are the project’s specifics.The book is a mixed media sketchbook that’s 5.5″ x 7.5″. I used collage materials including magazine pages and scraps of my own discarded artworks, as well as acrylic paints and inks, India ink, and pens, regular brushes, and bamboo brushes.
Here are the pages as they appear in the book:
Here is a more detailed look at the images.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
I love the chalkboard feeling of the buildings. (K)
Thank you. I made a kind of messy checkerboard of yellow and black and then used my dip pens to draw it all in. Another one of those images you can’t plan, it just happens.
The one with the trio of figures – or trio of portraits of one figure perhaps – makes me think of a vintage lecture hall. I think it might be the colour palette and the shape of the glasses. I absolutely love the colour palette of the one on the left. I think that would make a pleasing fabric design.
I want to plop down on a sofa with a pot of tea and leaf through all your sketch books! Those are more awesome pages!
Thank you. Anytime you are in town, I can set you right up, we have a sofa waiting! Wouldn’t it be fun to visit in this way.
Hey Claudia, I meant to tell you. Those panels you sent me…Now adorn my cubicle at my job. They bring daily delight.
Oh good. I am glad to hear this!
Brilliant!
Thank you. !!!
Oh, my gosh – yes!!!! Brilliant idea, and I’m intrigued by every mark. Each time I try to do something even remotely like this (a “living life” sketchbook) I do a few entries, they’re crummy or pointless, & I quit. You’ve made magic here!!!
Thank you. I always have some sort of sketchbook project going, this one is more coherent than most because I was using up a collection of saved fragments of other artworks, mostly. It was fun to work this way. I think the key is just letting it be what it is and enjoy doing it, not let it have too much importance about being anything great. I usually think what I have made is pretty ho hum at best when I first do it but often on a later look I am happier.