bits & pieces...over the past few months...

Ciao everyone! 

So...I must admit, it's been quite awhile since I last posted on this here blog. Spring was a bit of  a frenzy between getting the Spring Collection launched, trying out some new markets, finishing up the school year, Spring wedding MANIA, another year of I Madonnari AND getting prepped for our 2nd year of Bellissima Art Retreats in Italy! 

To say things were hectic is an understatement. 

But, now I'm back in the bubble and rested after some down time cruising through Italy with some friends and family at the end of our 2nd retreat. 

I've got some secret projects I'm currently working on (more on that as soon as I'm able to share) and new Holiday designs are in the works too! I'm slowly collecting photos from some recent weddings as well and hopefully I'll get my newest sketchbook Sesto photographed soon. Until then, here's a quick catch up on some highlights you might have missed (if you follow along on Instagram, you've already seen most of this!).

I spent my last few days in Italy this summer sketching across Rome! Hot and sweaty and oh so much fun! 

I also was able to make a quick trip somewhere new -- VERONA!

My last wedding right before I left. This guestbook was a floral beast!

My 2017 I Madonnari piece of Burano, Italy! I'll share more about this monster soon. 

Chalk by Chels has been staying VERY busy lately!

VERY busy! These are from another friend's wedding back in May. 

I tried out the Jackalope market in Pasadena this spring too, and brought the little sis-tern along to help! 

Mural paining with a local elementary school with Arts Outreach! 

This was a dream wedding -- GEODE SLICE PLACE CARDS!! 

Some logo work for a new tasting room in Los Olivos! 

Quinto the traveling sketchbook update

I fully intended to be a more active blogger this summer. But seeing as it's July 23rd and this is my 2nd post since I arrived a month ago, that didn't go as planned.

Another thing that hasn't gone exactly as expected is Quinto. I still have soooo many pages left to fill and so little time to do so. I may have added too many pages without taking into account that I would essentially lose a week of sketching during the Bellissima Art Retreat. We shall see what I have to show for this summer come August 2nd. 

Here's a little peek at what I've been working on. Some pieces of Assisi, Perugia, Castiglion Fiorentino, Lucca and Florence. There's more photos on Instagram under the hashtag #QuintotheTravelingSketchbook

Quinto, the 5th traveling sketchbook

It took a while to get over thinking that it's weird I name my sketchbooks. Yes, I know, it is still odd. But my sketchbooks are more than just this holder for drawings and ticket stubs. Over the years of traveling, my sketchbooks have become my travel companions, often my only travel companion. 

Giving them a name not only makes it easier to differentiate when I made certain sketches or went places, but it also reflects a bit more of what they mean to me. They're not just stacks of paper held together with vinyl and thread. They're pieces of my adventures. They're my icebreaker with locals or other fellow tourists. They're my journal for new Italian words and a calendar for keeping track of where I'm going. They're even my umbrella or cushion if the need should arise. They're the only souvenir that I can't wait to show off to everyone when I come home!

So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Quinto, my 5th traveling sketchbook! 

I haven't even sketched in Quinto, and he's already my favorite sketchbook to date. I was originally planning on making the sketchbook for the summer grey. But when I was at JoAnn's a couple weeks ago, I found this gorgeous mustard yellow bolt of vinyl on clearance and I had to have it! It's so smooth and luscious, I freakin' LOVE this cover. 

The inside is just as special. I was going to use linen like I usually do and at the last minute, I found some leftover chambray fabric that I saved from the bottom of the super long dress I hemmed last summer. I even left the buttons on the edge! 

These are pretty much all the supplies I take along for my travels too. I try to pare it down as much as possible to keep down the weight and bulk. My go-to supplies are: 

• Winsor & Newton travel watercolors
• Kaweco fountain pens (with ink cartridges in black, purple and sepia)
• Kaweco mechanical pencil
• Erasers
• Clips to keep pages open to dry, or for photos
• Kuretake Zig pens in brush tips and fine point
• Faber Castell pen, S tip for painting on top of linework
• Pentel waterbrush, in fine point (I have a fat tip I'll probably bring along too)
• and an Elmer's "Photo Stik". It's archival so I don't have to worry about my pages yellowing over the years. 

You can read more about my favorite pens and where to get them in this recent blog post. 

I hope you'll follow along with my and Quinto's adventures this summer! I'll be posting photos of the sketching progress on Instagram under the hashtag #Quintothetravelingsketchbook. 

And if you'd like to stay in touch further, you can sign up for my newsletter! I'll be posting more details of my travels, as well as opportunities to win some hand painted postcards from Italy! 

You can read about my past traveling sketchbooks here: Terzo, the 3rd and Quarto, the 4th

bits + pieces of Utah

My family and I spent Thanksgiving in southern Utah at my grandparent's house. Utah is definitely in the top three for favorite places in the world (tied with California and Castiglion Fiorentino of course). We were there for a week and we crammed SO much into that week! I found an arrowhead, we went off roading, found petroglyphs, got seriously lost for hours in the boonies, went to the Grand Canyon, shot skeet (and rocked it!), found an antler, chopped wood, had hydraulic grease explode all over me, drove through Zion and ate copious amounts of food! So much stuff in just 7 days! 

We were also in Utah over Black Friday + Small Business Saturday + Cyber Monday and I'm so excited with how well it went this year! THANK YOU! There's still time to snag some goodies in time for Christmas, and if you sign up for the Sketchy Notions Newsletter you can snag 10% off your order! 

1. This guy almost didn't make it home but we were able to squeeze him in at the last minute! I'm still searching for the perfect spot to hang him! 

2. The view from my grandparent's house outside of Kanab. Best view to wake up early to. 

3. All my weapons of creation for arting in the wild. Armed with my trusty sling shot and favorite Bird Trouble pouch! 

4. A great off-roading ride that leads to the coolest petroglyph location!

5. Freja, our Danish foreign exchange student, and I got separated from our group another day we were off-roading. We were a bit lost for a couple hours but we got some great adventuring done and even some sketching. 

6. There's an old movie set by my grandparent's house too, where they filmed old Westerns. Now it's just a cool ghost town to wander through.

7. Dusty sunset after some off-roading. 

8. This is Freja just after we saw the Grand Canyon! Hooray! (She's also a fashion blogger!)

9. Sketching the Grand Canyon. I can check that off the sketching bucket list! 

10. We drove through Zion National Park on our way home. Zion is one of my favorite National Parks in the whole country. 

How was your Thanksgiving? Any good adventures or traveling stories to share?

Quarto the traveling sketchbook: update IV

How did two months just pass by so quickly?! In just over a week, I'll be making the reverse hellish trip back to California. Which is daunting. I'm excited to see everyone back home but this place is always so hard to leave. The food, the people, the sites...things you just can't get back home. 

One thing that I started doing this summer was taking photos of Quarto with the actual location I just sketched. I LOVE this series of photos! It's one thing to have a sketch to remember the place, but the combination of the sketch and the exact spot at that exact moment I sketched it is something really unique for me. Sometimes I can get the whole scene, other times it's just a little bit of the place. Either way I really love the double documentation of a place. 

1. My friend Susie and I climbed up the Campanile in Florence. Originally she wanted to do the Duomo but the line wrapping halfway around the back of the dome changed our minds. In the end, the bell tower had better views of the Duomo and some shady spots to sketch and read! 
2. The most perfect little mint Vespa! I sketched it first and then watercolored a postcard of it. Once I get home, these little postcards are going straight to the Notional Notions Etsy shop! I haven't been this excited for a shop update in a long time! 
3. The Anfiteatro here in Lucca. I've been working on this sketch for most of the summer. Which meant getting a gelato every time to claim my same vantage point...what a shame.
4. Piazza San Frediano was never really on my list of places to sketch but I'm so glad that I got pushed to (via some suggestions on Instagram). Such a pretty space.

5. One day I want to own a vintage Fiat 500. It's the cutest car (sorry VW Bug...)
6. I took a day trip to Siena last week, just in time to see it set up for the Palio race this weekend. I love this space, and it was fun to see it set up for the traditional horse race. Seeing the actual track set up makes imagining the horse race seem all the more dangerous. 
7. A visit to Siena isn't complete without visiting my favorite restaurant, Osteria Nonna Gina. Stuffed gnocchi in a secret sauce, fried zucchini blossoms, fresh focaccia, Chianti and a bit of Amaretto for a digestivo...love! 
8. I first sketched the Siena Duomo as a student but I never finished that sketch. It was nice to finally sit down and document the whole crazy beast. The next hard bit was finding my favorite part of the inlaid sidewalks around it to photograph Quarto with. 

Hopefully I'll be able to do another Quarto update before I leave. If not, the next time you see Quarto (if not on Instagram) will be once she's all scanned up and printed for the next Sketchy Notions shop update! 

Did you miss the other updates? Update I  | Update II | Update III

Quarto the traveling sketchbook: update III

I'm down to my last month in Italy. It's always scary how fast the time goes by here. The pages in Quarto are filling up fast too, I have just about 3 signatures left to fill. Then comes all the work of scanning and preparing for a new collection of travel postcards for the Fall! 

Here's a peek at the progress. You can also check out the other updates too: Update I, Update II

1. Hands from the Bargello Museum in Florence. Practicing writing in Italian and playing with my new Fabriano washi tape and found feathers. 
2. Postcard stash, lyrics and a new favorite Italian quote. And the back stairs at Santa Chiara in Castiglion Fiorentino. 
3. A couple moody spots around Lucca. 
4. The most perfect teal Vespa in all of Lucca! This street had the most irresistible shadows...

5. Inside my favorite restaurant in Cortona! And a quiet little archway in Lucca on one of the busiest streets in town. 
6. The walls. Oh the walls...
7. We made a quick day trip to Viareggio and had a gorgeous beach day! 
8. Yesterday we went off to Florence for the day too. We took the bus up to San Miniato, which has the best view of the entire city. 

Also, did you enter my postcard giveaway? Go see if you won! 

Quarto the traveling sketchbook: update II

Happy 4th of July! This past week has been pretty crazy. I headed back to Castiglion Fiorentino for just a couple days. I woke up just after 4 am Tuesday to take the 6:09 train in order to have a full day there. My friend Heather, who was in the same summer study abroad session as me, was waiting at the station on her way to Florence. Such perfect timing! 

I made the trek up the hill and headed straight to Santa Chiara to say hello. None of the ladies in the kitchen knew I was coming and it was so much fun to surprise all of them. I was able to eat lunch with all of them and spent the day cruising around town finding old friends. 

The UT Austin and Houston students also had their final exhibit that night at the center. It was a fantastic show! It's fun to see sketchbooks from current students and think back to the first sketches I made in that town 5 years ago. 

After dinner there was a band in the courtyard. It's the last week in Italy for all these students and it was great to see them having so much fun in this special space. Afterwards we went out to watch the USA vs Belgium soccer game. It was a very full day...

Wednesday my friend Veronica took me up into the Val di Chio to visit her friend and see her horses! I even got to ride one bareback for a bit. I caught up with a lot of friends that night too. 

Thursday my printmaking friend Rick and I went to Florence and sketched the Bargello and visited all our favorite art shops; Zecchis, Casa della Stilografica and the Fabriano shop. Afterwards, I caught the train back to Lucca and went home to fry up some stuffed zucchini blossoms! Oofah!  It was a pretty surreal couple of days but absolutely perfect. I was able to get a lot of sketches done too, and I've started collaging in Quarto. Here's a peek at the progress so far...

1. The infamous stairs that I spent many hours hauling crates of vegetables and water up during my internship. They're quite pretty when you're not struggling to carry stuff up them. Also I started easing my way back into collaging...
2. This is the sketch I started on after I made that Instagram photo I mentioned last post...
3. From my trip to Florence last week. I was able to visit Santa Croce and sketch it again! 
4. I've been playing around with different sketching techniques...color blocking and just quick lines then color. Pretty fun.
5. I've been trying to read La Testa degli Italiani...in Italian...these are my notes of words to look up, along with a watercolor from here in Lucca. 

6. Quick watercolor of the Anfiteatro in Lucca and some lists...
7. I woke up early one day and biked over to Piazza San Michele here in Lucca. The perfect spot for a cappuccino and a sketch before the tourists wake up!
8. Working on some new food related postcards. And the Loggia in Castiglion Fiorentino! 
9. The view from the courtyard at Santa Chiara in Castiglion Fiorentino. And the sweetest little chicken I met in the Val di Chio! 
10. Sketches from my horse adventure in Petreto in the Val di Chio. My favorite sculpture from the Bargello in Florence. 

The rest of the progress: Quarto update I