Sketchbook Peek

Depending on where I am in the creation process, my sketches will vary in their appearance. If there's a flash of an idea and I want to get it down before I forget it, the sketch will be very raw. Most of the time, I'll be the only one who can see the potential in this sketch. My husband has learned to not ask about what he sees when I'm sketching, because I get easily offended by such questions. :) If I'm playing with a concept, brainstorming if you will, I can spend hours on a sketch and get it pretty detailed and complete. Sometimes these sketches look better than the final product; they seem to have something that disappears once paint gets applied. I'm forever trying to transfer that special something from my sketches to the final painting.
This top page has an idea for a series of alphabet paintings I'm working on, an illustration to add to my portfolio, and a possible new banner for my personal blog. You can see I was playing with a variety of expressions for the crocodile.
The bottom page is cropped to show one of my desperate attempts to participate in Illustration Friday's (Discovery). For the last three weeks I've managed to rough out some pretty decent ideas, but have been unable to carry them through the final stages of painting and posting. (I'm really glad we have a month for our storybook assignment for this very reason.) One of these days.....