One page sketchbooks

In this video I show you how to make a simple sketchbook from one piece of paper and a way to tidy them up by gluing and cutting.

I make these simple one page sketchbooks very frequently and have for many years. There is something extremely tactile and pleasing about their intimate scale. 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, I happen to have a lot of heavy watercolour paper (350gsm) and I use that but you can use what you have to hand, you could even use cheap computer paper. These sketchbooks end up with 8 sides, so the end result will always be an eighth of the size of the paper you started with…

I sometimes begin the art work before the page is folded into a sketchbook, there is something about the surprising and unexpected compositions that come with the folding which I enjoy.

I’ve made them from abandoned drawings or from scrap pieces of paper, reusing and recycling and making something from not very much. I might take a painting that hasn’t quite worked and use it for the start of one of these art books, adding collage, painting over sections, turning the unloved into the loved.

Thank you to artist Sue Brown for the idea of gluing these sketchbooks. you can of course just make them by folding and one cut if you want to keep them super simple (the gluing helps if you are using thicker paper and want to neaten them up, because thick paper doesn’t fold as well and so the end result can get a little wonky.)