I have filled up three little books with my Inkblobs. The fourth has the writing on the outside and no drawings yet.

I think I'll fill it up pretty soon and then on to the fifth. And a sixth, and probably a seventh and so on.

Clearing out my bookshelves, just in case I have lots of them next year. One has to prepare for these things :)

Late night doodling.

I very much enjoy doing these dailies, they keep me drawing. I've also managed to set up a system to make scanning a lot easier. My beast (a nickname I gave my laser-printer / scanner combo) can email scans so I have it set up to send the image to my emailprogram, which then extracts the attachment.

This weekend we took it easy. It rained a lot and I felt very tired -- these two share a clear link -- so I spent a lot of time on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket sipping tea and watching a lot of MacGyver.

Nano didn't seem to mind.

She did, however, mind the attack of little stickyweed balls. They got between her toes and in her mouth. It took a bit of work getting them all off. We did eventually managed to free ourselves from them and will avoid that area for a while.

You know, just in case they lie there in the bushes. Hiding. Waiting. Planning. Ready to attack...

I drew this daily in my pocket moleskine sketchbook and feel a little torn. I like the pre-printed dates in the planner, which works as an extra stimulant to draw every day. On the other hand, my colours bleed / shine through a lot which causes a few annoyances on my side. And on one side I can get over that, like how I get over the pre-printed lines. On the other side, I just like it more when it doesn't show that much.

The added benefit of using an 80-page pocket sketchbook: it fills up much faster which works as a great motivator too. One of these days I will actually fill up an entire sketchbook ;)

So, for now, I think I'll switch to the sketchbook. As my friend said, I can always change my mind again.

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After the sofa day came a grape day, on which I ate a lot of grapes and messed up the colouring of my drawing. I suddenly turned brown!

It had nothing to do with the grapes, I just messed up the drawing.

On tuesday my veggie-box arrived with fresh new veggies! It always feels like a little surprise-package. On Wednesday I did my grocery-shopping at the mall and treated myself to a few stickers and some decorative tape, aaah. It looks so shiny and pretty.

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I had a sofa day. Not the entire day, because I did do some drawings, just most of the day.

Nano and I went for a firm walk in the afternoon, and then crawled back on our spots on the sofa to watch MacGyver.

I also made a drawing about a recent event in the hospital, where certain body-parts got squashed between a very uncomfortable machine. I prefer not to repeat that.

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Today turned out pretty good. My new (2010) moleskine daily planner arrived. With around 1/3 of the year still ahead of us, I decided to purchase it (with discount, haha) to try out daily or semi-daily sketching / drawing about my day.

I drew a little cartoon me on the first page and filled august 15th -- my birthday -- with a happy drawing.

For today I grabbed both pages, as I couldn't really remember what I did yesterday (not much, I suspect). We went out and bought me a new jacket, much needed since my other jackets have magically grown to large. I also bought a teapot at IKEA where we also returned some unneeded stuff from the kitchen-rebuild. Finally have a proper tea-pot now!

I chose the stainless steel with thermos properties because I like to keep my tea hot. And I don't always drink it fast enough.

I also bought a 5 way opener. I recently found one at a cooking shop and bought it for myself, since it would replace 4 items in my drawer (yes, I did get rid of those other items). I really love it, it helps a lot with opening jars and cans and such. I got one for my mother too, because she's had some trouble opening cans and such. I hope she'll like it.

Inspired by AnnaDenise and Kathrin J-M I wanted to try some drawing in my moleskine planner.

At first my brain objected: I couldn’t possible draw through _pre-existing lines!_

Que ‘Eye of the tiger’ and I did it anyway.

Sometimes you just have to do what your brain objects to.

I recently purchased a new rucksack.

Yes, another one.

Some people buy shoes, or clothes, or purses, or gadgets, or games. I buy rucksacks.

Because of my RA I can't carry regular bags easily and shoulder-bags pretty much kill me. No joke, I seriously ended up at the ER once (with Christmas) because I carried one and it gave me horrible tendinitis that left me in so much pain someone had to drive me to the hospital. I easily get tendinitis in shoulders and neck, and a rucksack seems to work best in preventing it.

This one weighs less than a kilogram on its own, has its own rain-cover and it came with a separate pouch you can either hang on that loop on the inside, or attach to the waist-belt.

Bonus-points if you guess who I have hanging on it. *[RA]: Rheumatoid Arthritis

I recently read somewhere to get good at drawing you need to draw something you love.

Well, I love marmite -- on ricecakes with cheese, in soup, in sauces -- and I love maggi sauce -- in soups, in sauces, with canned artichokes (yes, I have weird eating habbits) -- I've drawn them both.

Mmm, marmite and maggi sauce. What would I do without them!

I can't tolerate wheat completely, and they make maggi sauce from wheat. Luckily for me, I can tolerate that, woohoo!

I've never drawn my scar before.

It feels quite intimate.

I had to draw it from a photo because I don't have a large mirror in my flat.

I did it quickly, hasted even.

And now, I celebrate.

The writing says:

Scars They show our power to heal and overcome adversities. Don't hide them or feel ashamed. Celebrate.

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Yesterday I went to the Efteling, a Dutch amusement-park that I've visited often as a child. It started out with the fairy-tale forest and grew larger, with rollercoasters and fun rides. We did go into those too, and before we went I decided I wanted to draw the dragon in the fairy-tale forest. As a child, I loved and feared it.

In the afternoon, when others went into the rollercoasters I went to the forest and drew the dragon, a musical mushroom and one of the mushroom-houses. These mushroom-houses have doors through which kids can enter and look around. Some have moving parts; the one I drew had a door that opened and a little fellow looking out to see who rang the doorbell.

The dragon has a treasure chest in front of him, and if you try to take the crown, it'll growl, move his head and flap his wings. He also has smoke coming out of his nostrils and his mouth opens while he dives at you.

It moved a lot while I sat there drawing. Some people watched me draw, an entirely new experience for me since I usually try to hide and draw.

I had a great time!

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These photos of my latest drawings don't look too great. I took them with my phone; they look a bit dark and skewed. They'll have to do though, for now, until I have the energy to scan them or make better photos.

They do all look like happy little drawings, and I feel very pleased with how they turned out. I tried out a few new things, and liked it. Now that the kitchen-stress has started to subside a bit, I feel like drawing.

I did two sessions today, about half an hour each, and came up with all of this.

After I did the balloon I wanted to keep on drawing, so I ripped out the page from my pocket Moleskine watercolor with the help of the perforated edge. Before, I couldn't do it, it felt like sacrilege. This time however, I just wanted to continue drawing and the page got in the way. I tore it out, put it aside to dry and continued drawing.

Very refreshing.

Today I rummaged through my rucksack looking for a bottle of vitamins I thought I bought and didn't find it -- I still don't know if I actually bought it. When I dug into one of its pockets I felt an unfamiliar cold shape and took it out.

Surprise! My leatherman micra, lost for years. I bought it at the start at my eurotrip, thinking it would come in handy. It has a pair of scissors that did proof useful for opening food packages and such. After returning home, I misplaced it for a little while and then found it shortly after I moved.

And then I misplaced it again.

Its empty cardboard box lay on my nightstand, for years, as a reminder of it. At times I googled the type, thinking of purchasing another one, but never did.

And today, I found it.

I think I'll put it on my keyring.