Alda's Sketchbook

Officially Old, she/her, high school teacher with artistic leanings and social anxiety. I used to have different sideblogs but I kept posting to the wrong one so now it's all in one place: Discworld fanart, my own neverending attempt at writing a novel, occasional conlanging, nerding out about Ancient Greece, etc. I'm French and there isn't much I can do about that. 

[alda-rana]

Best of 2025

I was fairly productive this year, except for the September-November period where Silksong and work ate all of my free time... which means I can do a month-by-month best-of selection of my 2025 art! And it's not even ALL Discworld ^^'

January - The Light Fantastic

February - View of Stockholm

March - Sketch of my DnD character Tabatha

April - Psych

May - Vetinari shaving

June - Self-portrait

July - Witches Abroad

August - Portrait of Rikard

September - I didn't post anything that month, and the best thing I can find from then is a quick sketch of Windle Poons I did on the back of some document during the back-to-school meeting.

October - No posts from that month either, but I found a series of doodles from a DnD session...

November - Autumn leaves

December - Band with Rocks in !

[alda-rana]

So Rikard & I came back yesterday from the International Discworld convention where we both had the most wonderful time... we met wonderful people, saw amazing cosplays, played games, attended fascinating talks.

As members of one of the "Schools of Art" competing over the four days of the Con, we were part of a team putting up an impromptu Commedia dell'arte performance involving a wizard, a lady of the night seamstress and a persistent thief. Rikard was the wizard, trying to summon a dragon by doing his best Swedish Chef mumbling. I was part of the wall behind him (holding a piece of wallpaper appropriately decorated by graffiti). Between that, some charades and the treasure hunt where we all tried to find various props from the Discworld books, our team - presenting, among other things, Cohen's loincloth, Foul Ole Ron's Smell (aka an expired duck egg) and the team members' actual teeth - our team actually won the prize!

Rikard and I also joined the Unseen University Challenge, a Discworld trivia contest; our team lost in the first round, but when the finals came, one of the teams (appropriately named We're All Individuals) found itself missing 3/4 of its members so I snuck back in and we won!

I had bought a little plushie dragon to complete my Sybil portrait, but it kept escaping my pocket to go on its own adventures. It was twice brought back to me by a little girl who had found it, so I let her keep it, which she was very happy about, warming my heart! And she later got it signed by several distinguished guests including Rhianna Pratchett herself.

And of course I spent a lot of time sketching people at queues and events, but this time I tried a new approach: I actually asked people and even offered free commissions! It went awesomely.

Best event ever; nowhere else is even close to similar. For the next one I'm contemplating the idea of submitting a panel of my own...

[alda-rana]

On the Roundworld I spend my life feeling bad about my weight and like I'm unacceptably large. But once every couple of years I have THE perfect body type for the role. (If anything I'm not quite tall enough) Thank you Sir Terry for creating Lady Sybil Ramkin!

[alda-rana]

Found one of Gus's identities in a wine ad at Bordeaux airport...

[alda-rana]

Is anybody here attending the International Discworld Convention this weekend?

I'll be there, probably dressed as Lady Sybil, with my man whom I met at that very Con 12 years ago how time flies :')

[2productive]

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

this is from "research as a leisure activity" by celine nguyen, publs. on stubstack in 2024. it's a very good read

[copperbadge]

I met someone when I was pretty young who had received a generous inheritance -- not enough to live a life of luxury, but enough to live on comfortably without working. He had chosen to simply keep going to school his whole life. He did get degrees, but he didn't use them for anything other than pleasure -- he had a Ph.D but also two Master's degrees, three BAs, and was currently serving an apprenticeship in blacksmithing while considering trying out some trade schools next. I thought, if I had the money I'd do that too, and then thought about how I still could learn all the time, it would just have to be a hobby instead of the career he'd made of it. It definitely changed the way I saw both education and leisure.

[alda-rana]

Fun fact, the Greek word σχολή (scholê), whence we get "school" and "scholar", originally means leisure/free time! Learned people (well, mostly men, and rich) in ancient times used their free time, as in the time they didn't have to dedicate to business and politics, to study and expand their minds. So if you research for fun you're in the direct continuity of the people who invented philosophy!

[alda-rana]

On holiday in the south of Sweden where Rikard's family lives, I practiced my sneak sketching skills on the denizens of Kristianstad Rockfest 🤟

[alda-rana]

A painting of Scania in spring, as a gift for the wedding of Rikard's brother! I combined several photos that Rikard took of the same place from different angles, which means there's some fudging of the actual geography, but who's going to check, it's all flat anyway

[alda-rana]

Life is a wonderful thing when you live with someone who will occasionally sneak into your office while you're out, stick googly eyes on things, and wait patiently until you notice all of them -- which in my case usually takes several days.

Don't worry, he removed these on Gandalf. The ones on my desk lamp, computer monitor, and diary are still there :)

[alda-rana]

...now this is getting out of hand...

[alda-rana]

I don't often use my artistic talents in the service of my profession, but yesterday morning I decided that what my students needed to better understand a 380-year-old baroque comedy was ~~doodles~~ and whipped this up half an hour before class. Hope it helps.

[alda-rana]

#pour les éventuels élèves de première qui passeraient dans le coin#<- prev tags#bonjour oui c moi les eleves de première#merci beaucoup

Haha, ravie d'avoir trouvé mon public :D Bonnes révisions pour l'oral !

[alda-rana]

Yes, I'm a week late, but better late than never. It is a book about time travel, after all. Reasonably-priced love leading the people, after the illustrious model :)

I am no Delacroix, but I wanted to do this for many years and I had fun. It's not as good as I would like it to be, but probably as good as I can make it!

[alda-rana]

Life is a wonderful thing when you live with someone who will occasionally sneak into your office while you're out, stick googly eyes on things, and wait patiently until you notice all of them -- which in my case usually takes several days.

Don't worry, he removed these on Gandalf. The ones on my desk lamp, computer monitor, and diary are still there :)

[alda-rana]

Posting the redraw from this post as its own separate post so it's easier to see! I'm not quite happy with the face but it's probably the best I can do.

[alda-rana]

I wanted to draw something really good for this month’s Let’s Draw Discworld, but of course I started very late in the month and procrastinated like hell so I didn’t have time to finish it. Still, I want to turn something in this month, and I’m not pulling an all-nighter to finish it, because 1) the holidays are over and 2) at the end of the night it’ll be September anyway. So here is the unfinished version; sorry…

I still intend to finish it, of course, but when is another matter…

[alda-rana]

Wow, @stilltheturtlemoves, wherever did you unearth this thing from? Checking the date, its from all the way back in 2015... I had completely forgotten about it. It's got a nice idea in it, but it's obviously got lots of flaws that make me wince looking at it now.

Of course, I'm not going to finish a picture started 11 years ago, the original file is long lost anyway...

...so why not redraw it from the start?

(Bonus picture: an unconvinced Maja helping with the reference pictures)

[90377]

Fjaðrárgljúfur, South Iceland by Bryan Coe

[alda-rana]

I was there in 2010! I lost my pencil.

[alda-rana]

After litteral months of dithering, I finally bought myself a new graphic tablet. Alas, it hasn't miraculously made me better at drawing. Still, here's a picture. It's Agnes Nitt; a character I used to relate to a lot when I was younger. (Even though she had better hair and was much braver than me.)

[alda-rana]

Some time last year, tidying up in my office, I found an unfinished watercolour painting of Gandalf wandering in Middle Earth, that I had completely forgotten about but must be at least 10 years old. It was very obviously unfinished, with ancient blobs of drawing gum stuck to it, yellowed and completely unremoveable. I still thought it looked good, so I hung it on my office wall for a few months even though it kept falling off. And then I had an idea: I could actually sort of finish it, touching up the foreground with gouache (that could actually cover most of the yellow blobs) while leaving the background in its hazy, unfinished state. Now it's done, and I'm quite happy with it!

(Maja helped, of course.)