With these four spreads, I’ve completed all the pages in my Moleskine 365 daily diary project for the first quarter of the year. It was a busy week so most of the pages didn’t take a lot of time, but one big permission slip I’ve given myself for this project is that all I have to do is create something—anything—for every page.

One big surprise for this project so far is how many pages I end up really enjoying when I think it’s just going to be a knock off day. Also, I’m shifting to working on two page spreads every two days instead of single pages every day which makes for good rhythm.

A few notes

Top Left spread: all collage save for the ink rectangles on the left going off the page. Earlier pages show behind this spread because I collaged the cat right over the open spine without leaving enough room for the bend. Oh well!

Top Right spread: Okay, I love the dog and the cat. Gotta do more of this kind of work!

Bottom Left spread: I practiced painting with a limited palette for the bottom left spread. Using just Naples Yellow Deep (yellow), Light Magenta (pink) and Turquoise plus black and white (Golden Flat Matte Acrylics), I began by drawing my favorite coffee cup. Then for the facing page, I made stripes in different mixes of those same colors. I LOVE how you can mix any combination of the same colors and they all go together! The color on this spread also broke up all the black and white I did this week!

Bottom Right spread: Minimalistic, yes, but both compositions are new doodle shapes I used while working in my art journal this week. They’re not original in the world, but they’re new from my hand. I’ve been studying mid century modern design lately and I really do love those shapes.

Just documenting here. I think it will be cool to see how the book grows each quarter this year.