In the past couple of weeks I’ve uploaded new recordings of my completed sketchbooks on YouTube, so I’m posting all 3 videos here for your viewing pleasure!

The first two are small watercolor sketchbooks featuring seascapes, urban sketches, doodles, and mixed media experiments. The last one is a mixed media art journal featuring all kinds of experimental techniques and approaches to filling sketchbook pages.

If you don’t want to listen to my super long rambling, feel free to mute the video and play it at 1.5x speed :)

Urban sketching & seascapes – Moleskine watercolor sketchbook tour

This one is from 2012 to 2017. I used it mainly for quick watercolor cityscapes, city vignettes, seascapes, doodles, and some mixed media experiments. If you want to get a better look, there are scans of some of the drawings in my sketchbook gallery: Seascapes and urban sketches 2012–2016.

Doodles & seascapes – Canson Montval watercolor sketchbook tour

I started this one as soon as I completed the Moleskine—from 2017 to 2019—mainly for seascapes, doodles, and quick character drawings using watercolor, ink, pens, and colored pencils.

I haven’t published scans from this one save for the mermaid I did as a part of the Mermay challenge, but there are photos on my Instagram.

Mixed media visual journal tour – Moleskine sketchbook

I used this one from 2012 to 2020. This was a totally experimental sketchbook where I explored different techniques from simple pencil and ink drawing, colored pencils, water-soluble pencils and crayons, acrylic paint, gouache, oil and soft pastels, collage, and more.

The scans of some of my favorite pages are in my sketchbook gallery: Best of Mixed Media Art Journal #6. You can also see photos of some of the spreads from this one in my article: My 6 favorite mixed media art journal & sketchbook techniques.

Why does it take me so long to complete a single sketchbook?

The date ranges on these are quite big: 5 years, 2 years (for only 24 pages), 8 years. There’s another one I’ve been using since 2009 that still isn’t even halfway full. What’s up with that?

I use many sketchbooks at the same time, shifting between them often depending on what technique, size, or style I’m in the mood for, so neither one gets a lot of attention. One exception is my Canson Art Book Universal (the first video in the links list below shows an example), which I use almost daily, because I fill it with not only art and doodles, but also conference notes, diagrams, writing, etc.

Currently I have 13 sketchbooks in use. As much as I try to focus on one so I can complete it and move on, a lot of them are not ideal for my favorite art journal and sketchbook techniques (mainly watercolor), so I tend to avoid them. There’s also the issue of saving fancy sketchbooks for later instead of you know, using them.

Anyway… I’m a sketchbook hoarder, and I’m working on this problem :)

Want to watch more sketchbook tours?

Here are some earlier posts where I’ve shared videos of my sketchbooks:

• Mixed media sketchbook tour 2009–2023
• Messy recycled mixed media sketchbook tour video
• Mixed media sketchbook tour 2016–2021
• Why I Think Every Visual Creative Should Keep A Sketchbook (+ Video sketchbook flip)
• Month Of Fairies: Final week, sketchbook flip video & lessons learned
• Sketchbook flip video: Sketchbook West art show
• Mind Patterns – The Sketchbook Project 2013

Do you enjoy watching sketchbook tours as well? Have any favorite artists to recommend? Feel free to let me know in the comments.