A magic carpet of sketchbooks
Music credit: Honey and Bees by Damon Greene via EpidemicSound
Gathering
This week I gathered all my sketchbooks together, I made space for them in a single old cabinet.
They had been scattered a little randomly across my house in various different places, piled up under desks, hiding on shelves, under sofas…in boxes and cupboards.
We had a major burst water pipe in our house a few years back which upended normality, we couldn’t live in our house for many months as it dried out and was rebuilt. It meant that every single item in our home was temporarily displaced and moved around again and again. So although everything is fixed and back to normal now, there are still a few pockets of residual chaos, some things never quite found their way back to where they belong…
Evidence of showing up
My nomadic sketchbooks have now been gathered together and for the first time they are all in one place.
And my cabinet of sketchbooks is really a delight to me.
As they were all together, I laid them out across the floor of my studio. A magic carpet of sketchbooks, colourful, chaotic and full of memories.
At first glance, it might just look like a cacophony of paint and scribbles. But to me, each book is evidence. Evidence of showing up, of taking the time, making the effort and putting one mark after another. They tell the story of the fact I’ve kept going.
A record of fascinations explored
Sketchbooks are where I’ve discovered who I am as an artist and what I am fascinated by. Looking back across so many pages, I can see my artistic fascinations reappear, evolve, and sometimes turn into whole bodies of work. They are a record of curiosity, a trail of breadcrumbs back through my creative history.
The compounding of ideas
One random page on its own may not look like much. But a hundred pages? A dozen books? They add up. The time would have passed anyway, but now I have something to show for it. Ideas compound, threads gather and slowly something bigger takes shape. It’s a reminder that creativity isn’t just about single flashes of inspiration, it’s about an accumulation of experiences, an accumulation of ideas.
Momentum and joy
I think of sketchbooks as momentum made visible. That every page, the messy ones, the lovely ones…are all part of a larger story. And when I lay them all out together, I see not just what I’ve made, but the kind of artist I’ve become by simply turning up to the page, again and again.
Why it matters
For me, the magic of sketchbooks isn’t just in the finished spreads, but in what they represent: perseverance, curiosity, commitment and joy. They remind me that the work of art making is less about rushing to outcomes and more about a commitment to creativity, one small decision at a time.
If you need encouragement to keep going, let this be it: small efforts add up.
And one day, you too might find yourself standing on your own “magic carpet” of sketchbooks, seeing just how far you’ve travelled.
Types of sketchbook
Here are some of the sketchbooks I like, but sketchbooks are a personal preference and come in so many different shapes, sizes and varieties, the sketchbook that is right for me, may not be right for you.
The best sketchbook to use is always the one you already own.
The Venezia Book from Fabriano
The Ebony Artist Book from Daler Rowney
(Some of these links are affiliate links, if you buy something through them, I might earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only ever share the products that I actually use. )
PS: If reading this makes you want to spend more time in your own sketchbooks, you might enjoy my online classes. They’re all about curiosity, play, and building confidence in your art-making, one page at a time. You can explore them here: