Looking back at my sketches

I found an old sketchbook while cleaning out my place. It is Handbook panorama sketchbook with watercolor paper, and I had a few sketches in it and the rest was blank. Remembering that I didn't like the way watercolor behaved on this sketchbook, I still decided to use it again. This time around, I really enjoyed how watercolor flows on the page. By coincidence, the first watercolor I did and the last watercolor I did in this sketchbook were of the same place (The Getty Center), around the same time (sunset in autumn), and done with the same waterbrush (Sakura Koi waterbrush).

Here is the first sketch, done in 2011....

...and here is the sketch done this year in 2015....

I remember facing the same limitations with using a waterbrush: I scraped the sky with plastic body of the brush in the first sketch in my effort get a large wash in the blue sky area, and I still had a hard time getting a large wash in the second sketch. Even with these restrictions, I think I made improvements in getting the value and got better at letting watercolor work its magic. It's amazing what four years of daily sketching can do, even when I am not aware of how I am progressing when I look at my sketches from day to day. Here's to more sketching in 2016, and my your new year filled with art!