Sketching for Sketching Sake

 No, I'm not advocating for mindless doodling, however sketching without a specific purpose other than experimenting, practicing or testing new compositions can be a very productive of an artist's time.  I decided to spend the last week just sketching in my sketchbooks rather than do any production art.   My first round of sketching was to just fill several pages with small sketches of hot rods based on photographs I've taken at car shows.  I went straight to pen, starting with one element of the car and sketching out from there.  Each small sketch took about five to eight minutes and I fit five to seven sketches on each 9x11 page. There was no rhyme or reason, no planned composition, just fit a few sketches on each page and overlapping doesn't matter.  This was good drawing practice.

Model T Ford Hot Rod Sketches

Model A Ford Hot Rod Sketches

1932 Ford Hot Rod Sketches

I decided to take two more pages from my 9x11 sketchbook for testing possible compositions for hot rod paintings using regular pens for lines and brush pens for shading.

1932 Ford Sedan Hot Rod Sketch

1934 Ford Hot Rod Sketch

I think next week I'll take a shot at that 1932 Ford hot rod painting.  

For the last sketch of the week I decided try a little experiment using a new brush pen I bought this week.  The pen is a Pentel Brush Sign Pen.  The brush is very pointy and fairly stiff and the pen is filled with water soluble ink and the ink is very black. It's possible to make very thin lines and strokes up to about 1/8" thick. Since the ink is water soluble it can be manipulated with water after it's put down and create washes of gray from the black lines, I used a water brush for this.

Abandoned GMC Truck Sketch

I can see real possibilities using these tools and techniques, I plan on spending some time attempting a more refined drawing (painting?) this week.

Bottom line, there are many ways in which a regular sketchbook sketching can be helpful in your art practice.