Sketch Book Pages | Astrid Padilla

For My Sister, Love Always

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A Trip To Explore My Country, My family, And My Story

What the what!?! I haven’t posted since before I left for my April trip to Venezuela! I have a lot to catch up on. It was transformative. I came back with lessons that I have always known in my mind driven into my heart and into practice. The trip had many planned purposes – for my partner to experience my wonderful and extensive extended...

I am an inconvenient person.

Despite being raised on catholic guilt, a year of all girls episcopal school, and four years at the straightest job known to man I have managed to tenaciously cling to my authenticity. There will always be people pushing you to be what is most convenient for their needs and goals. It’s one of the greatest challenges to know yourself and to stay on the...

MaybeEmily

I stopped by maybemily’s studio last night even though my brain was fried from staying up until 5 am drawing & reading the night before. Surprisingly, I was awake but useless for making conversation so we enjoyed working congenially side by side & listened to a thrilling discovery channel special about the earth’s core. Very Dramitic! Seriously, they somehow made the earth’s core into...

Close At Hand

Caley is usually pretty close by, so this week when I have nothing better to do with my hands he gets a quick sketch done of him. They usually look more like whatever else is on my mind than his face. Piles of Caley drawings are emerging and I can’t tell if this is a good or a bad habit yet. I had a...

the islands are calling me back

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Margaret In The Mail

Going through some old sketchbooks I came across a page that had a drawing of Caley’s Mom that I started one afternoon a few years ago when we were visiting Indiana. Deciding to finish it was easy. Margaret Lents is a gem of a lady & who wouldn’t love to unexpectedly get their portrait sent to them in the mail? I know I’d freak...

Another “Shock & Awe” Monday

Sometimes the workweek jumps out and smacks you silly, you know? Well, when I get home from “shock & awe” Monday I usually need some good old fashioned sketch therapy so that I can sink back into my own...

Figure sketches from Mars

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In the light

Here’s a little watercolor self portrait of myself in the sunlight. I love white empty spaces in a piece. Even in dinky little portraits. In fact, white is my favorite color and I’ll come to blows with anybody that tries to say it isn’t a color. Bring it on. It’s my favorite for it’s potential. It may be a little traditional of me but...

And all we could do was to

Sit! Sit!...

Rumi

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi – 13th Century Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any...

Spine & Pelvis

The wonders of the body never cease to...

Boar

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Do Better

I was at the Museum of History and Industry on New Year’s Day learning all about my fine city’s past. I took my brother Geoffrey, a new transplant to Seattle, along with me. They were both tremendously patient with me. I can be a very difficult person to go to a museum with. My issue is that I’ve been both blessed & cursed with...

It’s a Skelator Christmas

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Christmas Eve Anatomy

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I look like my father.

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Urban Nature

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. -Kahil...

What? Fall?!!%#&*

Someone please tell me that this tree that I sketched at the park has some bizarre hormonal imbalance that accelerates the autumnification process. If not then summer is indeed over my friends, and my heart is just a little bit...

Personal Sanity & Perspective Breaks

Everyone takes breaks at work, all kinds of breaks–bathroom breaks, beverage breaks, lunch breaks, if you’re a Seattlite you may even take a sun break. My personal favorite is the “sanity/perspective” break during which wonderful little doodles such as the one below...

Sub Acie Dedicaverum – To Those Who Died for the...

What to do?

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Sleep

I guarantee that the vast majority of sketchbooks have an inordinate amount of drawings of sleeping people. It’s hands down the best way to draw people because you never have to ask them to hold still. The tricky part is asking them to let you draw them while they sleep. Maybe I tend to choose the more awkward...

Journal Entries

I’ve been away from the scanner, so there’s a bunch to come all at...

Friends

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Friends

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Friends

The joyous Miss Reddy now known as the patient & joyous Mrs. Finnerty....

America

Today I was reading from Robert Kennedy’s speech at the University of Kansas, March 18th, 1968. His words were the words of a visionary spoken with conviction and clarity and they are more apt now than they were even then. It is hard to admit that our nation has grown to so embody the world he describes but it is never too late to...

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