Night Vision Journal Flip-Through

Last year the kind folks over at Faber Castell sent me a delicious box of art supplies, In it were a set of my beloved Pitt Pens, a gorgeous set of oil pastels, and these babies: polychromos pastels — a material I never really experimented or played with before.

Below is my first drawing ever made using polychromos pastels. I created it last year, shared it on social media, and then packed the pastels away in my studio storage room.

I don’t know if it was the pastels themselves that I didn’t really get into or the paper I was working on in the handmade sketchbook that I purchased at my favorite paper factory in Oaxaca.

Anyways, it wasn’t until sheltering-in-place started here in the US this past March that I decided to dig those babies out and have a go at them again.

This time with a different handmade sketchbook from Oaxaca, but one basically made with the same type of paper.

I call this little journal my Night Vision journal because a.) I worked in it always at night and b.) I was exploring what it means to be an artist during dark times, such as now.

In the video below I share a short flip-though of the actual journal.

I want to point out that many of the faces have a cloud of creatures, swirls, or faces extending from the crown of their head. This was intentional. I was thinking about darkness and how it can be both ripe with possibility of new, fresh ideas as well as stocked with nightmares, fears, or past memories that haunt us.

I know. Kind of deep stuff right before bed — luckily the pastels lightened things up!

Here is a flip-through of my Night Vision journal and a little of why I love polychromos pastels so much. Enjoy!

My Night Vision eCourse starts Friday, June 5th.
Come join us!