Sketchbook Pages: Recently Finished

I haven't been around here much lately - it's always difficult to justify spending time on the computer when it's so gorgeous outside! Never mind that work has been crazy busy and other things are happening around here that I'll share in another post.

Anyway, to get back into the blogging rhythm, here are two random sketchbook pages from my recently finished book:

I sketched out this rough tree on our trip North to visit family for Easter. I was inspired mostly by the shape of some evergreens and wanted to keep it simple, so I just used a bit of cross-hatching to distinguish the needles from the bark. I'm really happy with how it turned out and want to experiment a bit more with this style.

I'm still turning to mandalas most of the time, and I decided this one needed to be more of a flower. I used a few markers to add colour and really make things pop. I particularly love how the pink petals and yellow polka-dot centre turned out.

Besides mandalas, I've also been doodling lots of birds lately... but I'll save that for my next post. Hope everyone had a great weekend and is looking forward to the long weekend next week (I know I am)!