Sketchbooks are vital to an artist, but people often misunderstand how they are to be used.
A sketchbook is an artist’s private tool, a diary, a resource, a stimulus and an aid in the blank times. It should not be something calculated to be shown to others. It’s a container for your own ideas.
Much of the material may be in a shorthand – almost code that the artist understands and then decodes when it’s turned into a finished work. So the artist has complete freedom to create as she or he wishes. That leads to the most important benefit – the ability to experiment!
You’ll have seen me write in other posts that the thing that stifles adults creativity is limited freedom to experiment. It’s understandable that people may have a reticence or reluctance to share work with others that they may feel is still a ‘work in progress’. Sketchbooks provide a safe environment where an artist can develop their skills and ideas.
Not an open door
Talking about writing, best-selling author, Stephen King says:
“Write with the door closed. Rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right–as right as you can, anyway–it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize.”
This is an exact parallel of the visual artist with a sketchbook. When you are working in your sketchbook, you are working with the ‘door closed’. When you start developing the work you will launch on the world – no matter how small or large that world may be – you are working with the door open.
Sketchbooks are notebooks. You may find yourself coming back to ideas, or pleasing sketches you created many years ago, to build a new work. They are something to be treasured.
I still have most of my sketchbooks some going back 30 years or more.
I always recommended students to use hardcover books, for just this reason. Cheap disposable books are designed to be just that – ‘disposable’. Your ideas deserve better.
Does size matter?
They come in ranges of sizes – something to suit every artist and their ways of working. Large books – around A4 size can be useful, especially in hard cover as the are self supporting and create their own desk rested on a knee. But I’m quite a fan of small A6 or 6″x4″ books. They are just right to slip into a pocket, bag or car door. There’s no excuse to be without one.
It reminds me of the quote by a great photographer when asked, ‘What’s the best camera?’ His reply was; ‘The one you’ve got with you’.
When my children were small and we’d go on holiday; like all kids they’d love to spend hours playing on the beach. I’d take along a small sketchbook and a few coloured pencils.
Kids move fast and I used to do lots of very quick sketches and they have provided the basis for some of my most satisfying paintings. And as I had to focus on the essence ot what I saw, I selected… something a camera would never achieve.
So, to summarise:
- Your sketchbook is your own safe, private space to experiment.
- They are not something designed to be shared, no more than a personal diary.
- Draw – draw lots. There is still no better way to develop your craft.
- Select whatever sizes suit you, but aim to always have one close to hand.
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