Exploring My Sketchbook: A Journey of Fantasy Houses
Welcome to a tour of my sketchbook! This one’s been a bit special – a little Sakura sketchbook filled with loose, wonky, and whimsical fantasy houses, all imagined and brought to life over the past few months. I took this sketchbook everywhere with me during summer and autumn. Many of these pages were created on trains or while travelling, and the process has been such a joy.
The Sakura sketchbook I used has thin paper – not ideal for watercolours, but perfect for sketching, inking, and keeping things light and spontaneous. Despite that, I decided to put it to the test and embraced the quirks of the paper. The warping, the bleeding of colour – all of it became part of the charm.
Sketchbook Tour
My Materials on the Road
Travelling light was key, so I relied on a simple kit:
A small travel watercolour palette
Water-soluble brush markers for quick colour
A water-fillable brush for blending on the go
Waterproof fine liners (like Pitt Artist Pens) and a brush pen for inking
I skipped the sketching step entirely, diving straight into inking. This approach kept the process playful and intuitive – no rulers, no perfectionism, just free-flowing lines and loose watercolour splashes.
Drawing on the Move
Travelling influenced the style of these drawings. The movement of trains made precise lines impossible, so I embraced the wobbliness and turned it into a feature. Loose, fluid lines paired with vibrant colours created a magical, almost storybook-like quality. Each house felt alive, as if it had a personality of its own.
Most of these drawings took just 10–15 minutes, making them perfect for travel. Sometimes, I added the ink on the move and saved the colour for when I got home. This relaxed approach, paired with using an affordable sketchbook, freed me up to experiment and have fun without worrying about mistakes.
The Joy of Imagination
For this sketchbook, I made a conscious choice to work entirely from my imagination. I usually use reference photos in my art classes and workshops, but this time, I wanted to let my creativity run wild. I dreamed up houses that are far from realistic – some with stacked stories, others with impossible shapes – and loved every moment of it.
One of my favourite touches was using a vibrant pink watercolour, which appears in several pages. I also enjoyed adding splashes of colour and letting the paint flow in unexpected ways.
A Course in the Making?
I had so much fun creating these pages that I’m thinking of turning this technique into an art course. Drawing from imagination, embracing imperfection, and working with simple materials – it’s a process I think many people would enjoy.
What’s Next?
This sketchbook isn’t quite finished yet – there are still a few blank pages waiting to be filled. I’ll continue working on it over the next few months, and another sketchbook tour will follow. In the meantime, I’ve got several other sketchbooks on the go, so there’s always something new to explore.
If you enjoyed this peek into my creative process, you can join me in my online community, where we draw and paint together each week. And keep an eye on my YouTube channel – this is my year of YouTube, and many more sketchbook tours and art tutorials are on the way!
Let me know your favourite page from this tour in the comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you so much for joining me, and I’ll see you soon for the next sketchbook adventure!
Until then, happy creating!
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