Drawing over brush tests and color swatches is one of my favorite ways to work in my sketchbook. There’s something fun about these “garbage” pages that I’ve always kind of hated throwing away – they remind me, after all, of my favorite part of painting (the painting part), and often contain nice colors and interesting marks.
I used to make sure that I did these on a scrap of watercolor paper, so that they wouldn’t “mess up a good sketchbook”, which it turns out isn’t really a thing. Instead, sketching with-and-over them is a great way to fill a page in a quick way that gives a really interesting, energetic background.
Today, I drew pea vines! I used an old decorative pattern as inspiration, and tried to place a close-up against brush marks on the lefthand page. Because I used water-based felt tip pens for my lines, I was able to tint them in with a monotone jade green using just a damp brush. This sketchbook page came together super quickly, in a little over an hour, leaving me plenty of time to get to work on my big projects!