Exercise 1.1 Relationship with sketchbook?

I do already keep sketchbooks, but I don’t work in them as often as I would like. I wouldn’t say it’s an extension of me at the moment but I would like it to become that in the future. I would say it probably is just a functional item that holds my ideas, however I do enjoy having a lovely quality sketchbook, I enjoy putting my favourite artists stickers on the front covers and it’s always been my dream to become one of those people who ‘live’ in their sketchbooks. Taking it everywhere, always sketching, taking notes etc.
I’ve never been like that so I am hoping this course unit will help me change that and I will get to a point where sketchbooks become really important to me.

I think I have been scared about using sketchbooks and perhaps that is why I’ve never made it a habit yet? I think there is an element of perfectionism that goes on with me and my art which leads to procrastination and not allowing myself to let loose.

Since beginning this unit I have been challenging myself to work in my sketchbooks more, experimenting with different ways of doing things, using different mediums and seeing what happens. This is a totally new way of working for me and I’ve been enjoying it.

I also tried out travel sketching for the first time whilst on holiday and visiting a local gardens. I made myself a mini tin of watercolours and took a water brush and found I really enjoyed doing this kind of sketching. Which surprised me actually, I was amazed at how relaxing I found it and I wasn’t worried that the sketches weren’t perfect, I knew I was learning and experimenting and that felt very freeing. I don’t even care about people seeing them, that’s quite a transformation for me!

Previous sketchbook work:

My old sketchbooks mostly contained, swatches of different supplies to find colour palettes I enjoyed. I still do this now. Character ideas for new paintings, random sketches of things I tried to draw from real life and trying out cute ideas using different pens.

Which Sketchbook?
I decided to use my small booklet sketchbook to start documenting where I am at with sketchbooks and where I would like to be.

I definitely think I need to be more attached to my sketchbooks and use them more to express myself in general, instead of thinking of them just for working on finished illustrations.

Looking through the questionnaire comments was a really interesting task. I found there was a lot of ‘green’ highlights (things I would like my sketchbooks to become) and there were some pink (what it’s like now).
I noticed that I highlighted a lot of comments about making sketchbooks more personal and sharing more personal things in there. I love to journal and I can write pages and pages at a time, processing life through my words. I would like to try incorporating some of this with sketches to see if this is something that could also work for me. I do feel quite unsure about sharing too personal things as I wouldn’t want to show others but it would be interesting to explore ways to mask or hide the really personal things. Maybe even using codes?

I’m not at a point where I take my sketchbook with me everywhere but I have started taking one out to the local cafe where I go to work quite a lot. I’ll sit and work on art ideas or write ideas out for my art business. I find this a really enjoyable practice and now have started sketching there. I’d like to start sketching people at the cafe, I think that would be fun. I follow an Illustrator called ‘Frannerd’ and she does a lot of people sketching and she has inspired me to try it more.

I’d also like to explore travel sketching more and see where that leads.