I Finally Finished a Sketchbook!

A look back at 2024 and 2023

Hello!

I have returned from Las Vegas where we celebrated Adam’s grandparents’ 90th and 91st birthdays! Congratulations to them!

For Christmas in 2022, I got a Traveler’s Notebook which I have used on and off. Recently, I’ve been getting back into it and I brought it with me on our trip to Vegas where I finally finished another sketchbook insert!

Left: Brand new in 2022, Right: My rugged baby in 2024!!

Anyways, we all know why we’re here… It’s time to dive into another sketchbook share!!

THE COVER!

I just wanted to share that this booklet is SO cute! I picked it up at the train station in Tokyo where it’s a Tokyo exclusive. There were also some stamps available which I was obligated to use of course:

Sketches from Las Vegas:

Debuting a new and more accurate comic version of myself with long hair

Some thoughts on what I want to work on during my Spruceton Inn residency in November

Aquarium sketches of many wonderful sharks

In Vegas, Adam and I went to the Shark Reef aquarium at Mandalay Bay! We first came here in 2019 when we had first graduated college and were just little depressed babies. It was fun to come back 5 years later as two fully grown adults who are a little less depressed-ish!

Anyways, here is a hilarious photo I got of Adam in 2019 vs us in the same spot five years later:

Left: 2019, Right: 2024

Sketches while waiting for Adam’s Lola to finish gambling

We don’t gamble so we just spent a lot of time walking through the casinos on the strip to people watch and shop. Here I am very excited to find a slot machine with a silly pig:

BIG PIG & the Venetian

Sketches from the summer:

This crocodile reminds me of the book Professional Crocodile (highly recommend)

During the summer we went on a short vacation with Adam’s family to Bethany Beach and Ocean City, Maryland:

Adam somehow returned from the ocean with a horseshoe crab???

Some beachgoers and a plant

I’ve started using ballpoint pen in my sketchbook recently because it strains my hand less and I’ve really been enjoying it! It’s like sketching with pencil without the smudge (which is my biggest gripe with pencil).

Other stuff from 2024:

In January this year, my sister came to visit! We roamed around and bought things:

Everything we wanted to go to was closed for the new year!

Title brainstorming before we settled on Don’t Eat Eustace

There are some pages from Taiwan earlier this year as well:

Attending a dental association dinner where they hired a fancy string quartet

Visiting the new manga museum in Taichung

Pig town tests

Reminder my book comes out in TWENTY DAYS!!!

If you preorder (and email me your receipt) you can get FREE access to all paid posts for a year, starting with this post below!! Wahoo!!

Pages (and photos) from 2023 Japan + Taiwan + NZ trips:

In 2023, I posted about visiting Japan with my sister. I only made a post about the leg of my trip which was in Kyoto. The second leg was in Tokyo where we shopped and ate our hearts out. Here are some sketches and photos from that second leg that I never shared: