I’ve been noticing a lot of people talking and writing about and sharing their sketchbook practice lately. Some people have a very meticulous and organised sketchbook practice, where they draw specific things over and over again, or where they produce what look like pretty finished (and AMAZING) pieces in their sketchbook. Some people use their sketchbook mostly for idea generation - whether on specific projects and commissions, or just as a general idea storage that they can come back to when they want to look for something to draw or to find a particular interpretation of something to include in a project. Some people fill many sketchbooks with wonderful travel sketches or other on location sketchwork. On formal academic courses, there seems to be a particular expectation when it comes to sketchbooks, whereby they include studies, notes and supposedly the whole thought process.
I know that I’m not the only person who is fascinated to watch sketchbook flickthrough videos and hear about how other illustrators and creatives use their sketchbooks. I genuinely feel that this is a window into a creative person’s brain and no wonder agents love to look through sketchbooks. I heard recently - I can’t remember where, sorry!) that quite a few clients are actually wanting that raw sketchbook art, rather than the finalised and neatened up pieces, which is at once scary, exhilarating and freeing.
I am in the midst of a website overhaul. I’ve changed the header and a few other bits and bobs so far, but the organisation of it is going to change to go back to categorising somewhat. I used to have nine categories and then decided to go for a single-page portfolio because a lot of the editorial illustrators I admired had that set up. But I am now leaning towards categorising again - maybe so I can show more, but also because I have found the patterns and other more decorative art has disappeared from my website, because it didn’t fit alongside the more traditional illustrations. Anyway (sorry, you will notice, the more you read here, that I have a tendency to waffle a bit and go off on tangents - I know that’s not really what people look for in a writer, but it is authentically me, at least)… it’s going to include a sketchbook section, because I think sharing sketchbook work, raw and scrawly, as well as the clearer, more defined and finished-looking bits, is important both for potential clients and also for other creatives who, like me, are nosy and love getting that glimpse inside the thought process and initial workflow.
This is kind of where I’m going with what will appear on the front page (and I’d intend to swap out the pictures fairly regularly). I’m currently collating what I want to include in the different categories and resizing them (I have made the mistake over the years of uploading very big images and that’s not good for multiple reasons, including SEO and the ease with which they could be stolen).
One of the things I’ve seen mentioned by a few people recently, including
, is how sketchbook practice can bring you revelations about your work. So, I wanted to share a few that I’ve been having within my own sketchbook practice. (By the way, every time I type sketchbook it comes out wrong and I have to correct it - sketchook sketcbhook sketbhcoook - gaaaagh!)Subject matter
Interestingly, this tends to depend on whether I am sketchbooking on paper (almost always in an A5 Seawhite of Brighton sketchbook - I have lots of them and usually carry one with me, have one sat on the coffee table and another on my desk and then I have a bunch of finished ones sitting on the bookshelves and a pile of empty ones waiting to be filled; they work perfectly for me and take paint, ink and pencil nicely) or digitally (in Fresco and, almost always, when sketching, I will be using the raster brushes and my favourites for sketching are Scratchy pencil and Lost line - I have no idea whether these are built in brushes or Kyle Webster ones or what, sorry! and that reminds that I really must write a post for the Fresco section; maybe I’ll write a post about my favourite raster brushes and vector brush settings).
On paper my most common subjects will be head and shoulders sketches of people (frequently drawn while watching Zoom classes or interviews etc. but sometimes while watching TV or sat in a café), from-my-head patterns of stylised flowers, objects I can see in front of me and fairly random drawings of imaginary women (who often channel me in some way or other).
Occasionally, I’ll go off on an imagination riff which is great fun, but it’s not my default to do that. (Therapeutic, introspective sidenote: I wonder if that’s because of the teacher in my creative writing class at secondary school who wrote in my report ‘Tasha writes well but she has absolutely no imagination.’)
This started off with me drawing a random woman and then deciding she could be walking a dog and then I thought I’d add another one (and I was watching The Gilded Age at the time, hence the dress of the woman on the right, I think) and then I thought I could them in a park and I realised the park would need a poop bin! I had a lot of fun drawing this one.
Here’s a video flickthrough of a couple of sketchbooks for you (apologies that I haven’t done any editing magic - there should be some inspirational music or something!).
On the iPad, though, I am most likely to sketch rooms.
My insight or revelations in terms of subject matter and content have been that I really need to create more patterns, because I love it so much (and, actually, if you looked at my camera roll, too, you’d see that decorative arts really call out to my soul - that’s the things I photograph in museums, ornate doors and windows are all over my camera roll and very few famous buildings, when I’m travelling and so on). And, actually, even in the rooms that I draw, you will almost always see some pattern there, too. And the other one is to really dig into drawing rooms and everyday objects and to try to nail down a project (personal or perhaps a book pitch) that will allow me to draw lots and lots of rooms.
Colour and medium
Sketchbooks (physical for the most part, but digital too) are also a place that I love to experiment with and explore my use of colour, as well as playing with different media.
For example, despite my being a full-on, bright-colour illustrator, I have been really loving painting with just (or mostly) brown lately, and exploring different shades and values of brown.
And I’ve been loving getting the paints out and playing around with them again, but also mixing in some fountain pen and gel pen too, to give a variation of flat(tish) colour and finer lines.
And I’ve been having fun with pencil and crayons, too, for looser sketches.
And then you might have seen (if you’ve looked at the About page on my website recently) that I’ve also been experimenting with combining the really loose sketchy work with some digital colour.
I really love this last one particularly (apart from the fact that her/my legs are totally in the wrong place - but the style and just having a few little splashes of colour.
So… my biggest sketchbook insight of late has probably been the realisation that I really want to explore the looser hand-drawn and raw sketchy style a lot more. I always wonder, when this sort of transition happens whether it is genuinely me it’s coming from or whether I am being influenced by trends, because I think there’s no question that a looser hand-drawn and hand-painted style is becoming more popular and sought after right now.
So… have you had any sketchbook revelations lately? How (if you do) do you use your sketchbook? How much time do you spend sketchbooking? Is it a 10- or 30-minute a day dedicated practice or do you spend the bulk of your creative time inside a sketchbook? I’d love to hear about your sketchbook practice - either write about it in the comments, or link to your own posts about it.