What a sketchbook practice has given me

I’ve been thinking about what my sketchbook practice has brought to my life beyond the actual pages… here are a few thoughts:

A home for my creativity

I didn’t create anything in my twenties. In my thirties, as I slowly started to come back to my creative self, I didn't know how to navigate it.

I wasn’t quite sure where that artistic part of me belonged. It didn't seem to have anywhere to call home. Then I started using a sketchbook.

My relationship with a sketchbook started off tentatively and tumultuously. But over time, my sketchbook practice has become the home ground for my creative self.

It’s the foundations and it’s the roof. Somewhere I can house my thoughts and experiments. Somewhere I can come back to.

A way to care less about the outcome

When I first started using a sketchbook, I believed that whatever I put on the page reflected my ability. So if it wasn’t good, that meant something.

I expected every page to prove my artistic worth straight away. I wanted every page to be accomplished. They were not. I don’t have those early sketchbooks anymore, I threw most of them away. At the time, that felt completely reasonable. But really my expectations were too high and I wasn’t giving myself a chance to get anywhere.

If everything has to be exceptional, you don’t try new things, you don’t experiment. You stay with what you already know you can do.

And that becomes limiting, extremely quickly. A creative cage really.

I realised this mindset of mine was not helping my creative self to flourish. I didn’t decide to care less and be more experimental. I practiced it, page after page, until it started to become true.

A place to practice and spot patterns

I stopped trying to prove anything in my sketchbook. I just used them. I welcomed whatever arrived.

I enjoyed practising techniques, but more than that, I enjoyed noticing my own creative patterns. Noticing the bits I loved in my own work. What I repeated. Specific marks. Unusual colour preferences. Small details that delighted me.

Finding my own way of making

I wouldn’t have been able to describe my “style” in those early days.

But when I look back through the older sketchbooks I kept, I can see it emerging.

Certain shapes appearing again and again. A kind of repetitive mark-making. A fascination with natural forms and ceramics. Jugs, leaves, patterns, spots, lines, high value contrast, bold shapes, repetition. I love being able to track the journey of my fascinations through time and through the pages of my sketchbooks. A sketchbook has allowed to to discover so much about my own sensitivities and preferences.

A container for creative clues

The compounding effect of a sketchbook practice is so helpful.

You can see pages and pages of practice in one place. A full sketchbook is a container for so many creative clues and way-markers. My sketchbooks are such a valuable hunting ground for new ideas, I just go back and see what I notice, all that art of mine, all those pages help to nourish my current and future work.

An anchor

There have been stretches of life that have felt difficult and unsettled.

During those times, my sketchbook has been an excellent escape route, a place to retreat to, a small corner for my creativity to live, a place to anchor it.

Creative confidence

My sketchbooks have boosted my creative confidence. Page after page you learn that no one page really matters. We call it an art practice for a reason. I’ve found growing ease with beginning, with making a mess, with seeing what happens, with trying things I don’t know how to do. Ideas develop in motion. On some pages everything works, on other pages the opposite. A sketchbook has taught me the act of returning, turning the page and going again.

A nice time

Sometimes a sketchbook is just about having a nice time. Connecting head, hand and heart, A blank page, some art supplies. Creating for the pleasure of creating something from nothing.

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

Stillman & Birn, Zeta Range

The Ebony Artist Book from Daler Rowney, this is the giant A3 sized book I like to use

Dylusions Creative Journal Large from Ranger

Seawhite of Brighton Pocket Concertina

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