If you are following me on Instagram (you should), you may have noticed some sketchy stuff going on lately. I sketch often, so it was really a no-brainer when I received an email invitation from Creative Live to sketch some more. Of course I would like to!

This first sketch was easy, because pretty much at any time, I have a cup of tea going. Especially when I'm feeling flu-ish and cold-ish, which is a lot in the last couple of months. Hence, my cup of tea with a slice of lemon floating just below the surface. In my favorite mug with detail of "A Slice of Earth" printed on it (you can get one for yourself here)

Next one was a bit of a challenge. Your regular houseplants without flowers do not excite me in the slightest. And I only have two of them, both miraculously surviving orchid plants. Which are not currently blooming. So I spiced things up with an orange LePen and played with a cropped composition. The weird worm-like roots spilling out of the pot helped, too :)

This one needs some explaining. When I think about album art, I think of my dad's vinyl collection (all left in Ukraine when we moved to the U.S., along with our books). And among the Pink Floyds and the Beatles, there were audio productions of children's stories, and among those, my favorite was this 1976 radioplay/musical adaptation of Alice in Wonderland by Vladimir Vysotskiy. I listened to this at night, before falling asleep. And I loved the gatefold sleeve it came with.

Here's also my album art sketch of one of my favorite music records:

Finally, the last prompt I did was 'draw what's inside your bag.'

I am at an awkward stage in life, between a diaper bag and ...who knows what. I have a gym bag, a going-to-the-library book bag, a camera bag, a plein air bag. But I don't have a go-to purse that would contain all of my essentials. Usually, I just bring my wallet and my keys, and if there's a chance that I might be able to steal some sketching time, I bring a sketchbook. So...I sketched my keys.

Compare and contrast this to my keys in early 2010:

No house key, because we were living at a friend's house back then, while shopping for our own house in the high desert. The little key was probably for a safe with important documents that I didn't want to get lost in the move. And of course, my American Institute of Architects membership card, proclaiming undying love for architecture (which is a topic for a whole 'nother blog post). Until then,

Yevgenia