Suggested year-long project for improving your drawing skills

Borrowing the idea from German graphic designer Manuela Hoffmann, I have been using my Moleskine weekly planner as a sketchbook and doing some test doodles with my Pentel Color Brush pens and Prismacolor Premier Archival Markers. The former were hard to control as their dye inks bled through the thin planner paper, but the latter worked just fine with their pigmented inks barely showing through the back of the page.
While thin planner paper might not seem like an ideal choice for a sketchbook, it can handle pigment liner pens and most dry media like color pencils and wax crayons quite well. Now with New Year day long past on the year of the Ox, most retailers are significantly marking down calendar planners and many journals. Found a couple of nice choices at Borders this afternoon, a 3.5" x 5.5" Moleskine Daily Planner 2009 and a A5 size Paperchase multicolor journal. Either one would make a suitable replacement for my current Kolo journal which I use as my main travel sketchbook.
These small formats allow for the completion of small doodles and sketches on a regular basis anywhere: daily or weekly. So here is the mission boys and girls if you choose to accept it: pick your planner in a size small enough you can carry around comfortably and commit to doodling or sketching a page-a-day (or a page-a-week as your schedule allows). The prize: by the time you complete your sketchbook journal you are bound to have improved your drawing skills and at the very least sharpened your dexterity. The proof will be conveniently documented chronologically in your planner turned sketchbook. I would recommend picking subjects you enjoy to keep you focused (pets, fairies, mermaids, ponies, robots, dinosaurs, cars, rockets, etc), with some challenges mixed in to work on areas you might find somewhat difficult to draw (like "hands seen from different angles" and/or anything you know you want to draw better). By the end of the year, you are sure to end up with your own menagerie of fantastic sketches and greater confidence in your drawing skills.

Pilot Hello Kitty Cap Limited Edition Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen Review

Just got this pen sample for review from JetPens. Thank you Lily!
Since this is such a cute pen, I felt it was a better fit to review it in this kid friendlier blog. It's my understanding that the mascot decorating this pen is Hello Kitty's friend: "Charming Mouse" (Correction update: this HK mascot's actual name is "Sugar", thanks Gentian!)
This limited edition Hi-Tec-C light blue pen performs as well as its regular black counterpart. Great pen for taking notes and writing tiny letters. Its 0.3 mm fine tip writes and draws very smoothly on the paper surface without skipping. Its shade of blue is quite similar to the Pentel Slicci Baby Blue gel pen ink, and it has some non-repro blue quality (when photocopying the scanned image below, only the black kitty appeared clearly while all the blue outlines were barely visible). Thus it would be a good choice for initial blocking and sketching.
The Pilot Hello Kitty Cap Limited Edition Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pens are sure to please little girls and girls-at-heart everywhere. The full set of 9 color pens in 0.3 mm or 0.4 mm would make an ideal gift for birthdays and graduations. Alternatively one could get a few sets to distribute as prizes for students in a classroom.

Art Backpack fine tuning and Sketch Folio

The Sketch Folio could be a good choice for field sketching, for it can efficiently organize and hold a handful of pencils and 9"X12" sketchbook in such a lightweight and compact format. The Sketch Folio works fine if there is adequate room available to set it down flat to draw. It can be awkward to hold while standing and drawing. It's rather easy to poke yourself if the pencils points are stored as shown on the picture, and the sketchbook and tools can still slip off the folio depending on the angle it's held. It would be nicer if it held its contents more securely. Its magnetic closure is rather weak, so the folio never closes tightly allowing tools to fall off while moving about and running. Careful children could get some practical use out of the Sketch Folio on field trips. More rambunctious kids would probably be better served with fully enclosed messenger bags that would more securely hold all their art supplies.
The single strap Adidas bag is my current default art backpack which I tend to carry everywhere. Definitely way too many tools to use on short trips, but just about the right variety for longer trips. Good to have when sharing quality time with the nieces, so they can have a wide range of choice of media for impromptu art lessons. Got some watercolor and watersoluble crayons in case the weather is nice enough for a painting session in the patio. Lots of markers, pigment pens, pencils, and leadholders options to provide variety and fun choosing and trying different artist-quality sketching tools under close supervision. Generous supply of drawing paper and loose card stock sheets to accommodate the needs of several children. A digital camera for documenting artistic output tends to add a tad more weight.Still gotta pare it down a lot more, to come up with a more efficient daily take-along sketching kit.

A few more coloring pages

Doodled a few more coloring pages while waiting for an oil change at the car shop.

Coloring page for the day

Wizards Council coloring page. You can check out my coloring approach for this outline here.