A mixed media sketchbook tour

In this video I take you on a tour of a full and completed sketchbook and chat about searching for joy and delight in my art making..

This sketchbook took about six months to fill up. I know from the outside that it probably appears that my whole life is just full of care-free days spent colouring-in in my sketchbook… but the reality is that I have to actively find time for my sketchbook practice.

So here I wanted to talk about fitting a sketchbook practice into your day-to-day-life and how I do it.

Connection and kindness

When life is busy with client work, running a business, deadlines etc, playing in my sketchbook can feel like a luxury or a bit self-indulgent. But actually I know it is neither a luxury nor an indulgence.

My sketchbook practice is a tool for connecting with my creative self.

For me, creating in my sketchbook is a nurturing act, an act of kindness to myself, a form of self care and self expression. It is actually probably more important to me than lots of the other things in my life which, on the surface, would appear to be far more important.

Prioritising creativity

When I go for a week or more without using my sketchbook I feel a little disconnected from my self, a little bit adrift and a little unanchored from the creative side of me.

I find that creating art is like a homecoming, a grounding, it feels like I’m reconnecting and checking in with my self. It is a way to better understand myself, my world and what I’m interested in. So sometimes I have to actively make time for my sketchbook, to recognise that it is a priority to me and organise my life accordingly.

It is a habit which enriches my life, fills my creative-well and a practice which keeps me inspired and fluent in my art making, my sketchbook is the engine of my art making, so I find time for it, even when I don’t seem to have too much time to spare.

Frequently, I have to literally carve out time for my sketchbook, steal time from somewhere else or utilise the time I have better to ensure I get some time with my sketchbook. For example, this Summer I paused making YouTube videos and these newsletters to give myself more time to make art… This meant I had more time to paint generally and more time to use paint in my sketchbook, use messy materials and take time to play about. Life is always a balancing act and I often have to recalibrate and check-in with myself to ensure the pendulum hasn’t swung too far away from art making.

Small windows of time

When I’m busy I often end up fitting my sketchbook practice in whilst I’m waiting for something to cook, or in bed, or on the phone or whilst watching television with my husband at the end of the day… sometimes these scenarios are not optimal and demand a simplicity of materials, one pen or one pencil, but I find that a small stolen window of time is better than none at all.

I never ever manage to work in my sketchbook every single day.

This sketchbook is an Artist Sketchbook from Daler Rowney which has 54 double page spreads, it took six months to fill up... which means I fill a double page spread about once every four days on average…

I find that little and often keeps the creative conversation alive. I love it when I have a whole afternoon to potter and play in my sketchbook, but sometimes life just doesn’t allow that, so I find what time I can.

Reducing friction

I make using a sketchbook super easy….I carry a small sketchbook and pen in my bag, this massive sketchbook is stored under an armchair in my living room with a box of different art materials and a few brushes which hold water in the handle. All I need to just start, is right there, there is no friction, no need to get materials sorted, no decisions to make at all… it is all just there waiting for me and encouraging me to create…

Making it easy

Is there a way you could make your sketchbook more accessible and easier to use? I think it’s a good question to ask… ‘how do we make creating easier?’, sometimes the answer is about lowering our expectations and sometimes the answer is just about putting your sketchbook where you are most likely to use it….

Love of Pattern

My love of decoration, ornament and pattern has been a life-long love affair.

All of my very earliest childhood memories involve pattern in some way..,the wallpaper in my infant bedroom, the pattern of a dress, a carpet, a bedspread, a plate, the decoration on our neighbour’s biscuit tin when I was only three or four. I see and remember the world via pattern.

The art we make reflects who we are back to us, doesn’t it?. It can be a projection, an extension of who we are, a culmination of our experiences, our sensibilities, our curiosities, our feelings…. And my art definitely celebrates a love of pattern.

Humans are pattern makers

I think perhaps patten also has an instinctual universal appeal too. Humans are pattern makers and pattern seekers. From the earliest times we have added ornament, decoration, motifs and marks to the items in our world, we turn the ordinary into the extraordinary through making our mark on the world. .We have always added pattern, ornamentation, decoration and detail to the items in our lives to make our lives more beautiful.

Humans are pattern seekers

We seek patterns as a way to understand the world.. there is comfort, familiarity and understanding in repetition and repeats…and at it’s most basic form that’s exactly what a pattern is. It’s a shape, a motif, a mark… repeated.

I seem to agree with the saying that ‘repetition makes perfect’…

Books and links

Here are the books I share in the video.

Terry Winters. Paintings, Drawings, Prints 1994–2004 Hardcover, 2005 by Richard Shiff (Author), Rachel Teagle (Author) Published by Yale University Press.

This book is now out of print but you can see more of Terry Winter’s art on his website here

Matisse in the Studio Hardcover – 6 April 2017 by Ellen McBreen (Author) et al, Royal Academy of the Arts

How to make a simple sketchbook

In this video I show you how to make a simple sketchbook from one large piece of paper. The bigger sketchbook in the video is made from an A1 sheet and the smaller one is made from an A3 sheet.

I make these simple one page sketchbooks very frequently and have for many years. There is something extremely tactile and pleasing about making a simple art book. I like the fact that it’s just one piece of paper, no pressure, no expectations, it feels expansive and freeing.

The great thing is that you can make them from any paper you have that you can fold and you can make them from abandoned art experiments or drawings if you’d like to…. in the video I am using paper which is approximately 150gsm in weight.

Art and life: sketchbooks, paintings and art books

In this video I show you some new completed paintings and trace their origin back to some old sketchbook pages. I share a couple of my favourite art books, talk a little about art and life and share some of my latest sketchbook meanderings…

The artists and books I mention:

Angie Lewin: Plants and Places by Angie Lewin, published by Merrell 2010

Barbara Rae: Barbara Rae, words by Bill Hare, Andrew Lambirth & Gareth Wardell, published by Lund Humphries in 2008

Available paintings

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Online art classes

Mixed Media Sketchbook Class £20

Make a Concertina Sketchbook £30

Colour and Pattern Sketchbook Class £20

Mark Making Sketchbook Class £20

A Playful Approach to Still Life £40

Make an Experimental Mixed Media Art Journal £30

Searching for joy and delight

Music Credit: Supine by Peter Sandberg via Epidemic Sound.

In this video I take you inside my mixed media sketchbook and share a speedy art demonstration experimenting with ink…

I often write notes to myself about my art, things I want to explore, things to remember, ideas to expand upon, fragments and whispers I want to capture.

Sometimes I list the things I want to do more of or the things I want do less of…

I’ve always found writing to be a useful way to think…by pouring words onto a page, I organise and clarify my thoughts and bring light to what I believe.

Joyful abandon

Recently a phrase has repeated itself in my notes and thoughts in terms of how I want my art to feel. “Joyful abandon.” has appeared twice in my notes… I only noticed it when I read back through them. And then I noticed I’d written it not once, but twice, on different days…in the same week. A subconscious thought made visible.

And what did I mean? I think I meant I want joy and delight to be the things I seek in my art making, my north star…

In this season of my life I want to lean-in to what I find and feel to be joyful…and perhaps abandon the things that don’t support this. There is something unapologetic, exuberant and enthusiastic about the concept of ‘joyful abandon’ that resonates with me. A lack of inhibition and constraint that feels expansive.

When there is so much darkness and difficulty in the world, it may perhaps sound naive of me to be seeking joy. The last few years have been a little challenging for me, I have struggled with some ongoing health issues and various other challenges, and it is exactly this difficulty that has made me more attuned to joy, more keen to seek it out, to celebrate it and appreciate it….

Seek what you value in your art

Creating art isn’t always easy, there will often be problems to solve, fallow seasons, perhaps times when it feels more challenging than others, sometimes art making will feel vulnerable and exposing, we will often get in our own way, but making a decision to seek out what you value the most and do less of the things that don’t serve this seems like a good ambition to me…

Art demo: abstract painting inspired by shapes

Music Credit: Supine by Peter Sandberg via Epidemic Music.

In today’s video I demonstrate a way to build up an abstract painting using layers of acrylic paint and shapes. I take some of the shapes from a previous drawing exercise and use them to develop striking abstract painted pages in a sketchbook.

In this painting demonstration I am using heavy body acrylic paint from Sennelier in a Daler Rowney A3 Sketchbook which has 160gsm paper.

This paint has quite a matte finish (although I think it is technically described as satin) so it doesn’t tend to result in sketchbook pages which stick together, some heavy body paint can be quite glossy and it is this shine that results in finished pages sticking together, despite them being dry when you close your sketchbook.

This demo and exercise is messy and playful and it can create interesting and surprising results…(if you enjoy a pristine sketchbook or are at all concerned that the paint you are using might possibly cause your pages to stick together you may want to try this on a piece of paper instead). I hope you enjoy it.

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Online art classes

Fun, Experimental Semi Abstract Still Life Class £40

A Playful Approach to Abstract Acrylic Still Life £40

Mixed Media Sketchbook Class £20

Colour and Pattern Sketchbook Class £20

Mark Making Sketchbook Class £20

Make an Experimental Mixed Media Art Journal £30

Make a Concertina Sketchbook £30