How I'm Currently Using My Sketchbooks and Journals
I’m a sucker for a fresh new notebook or sketchbook! I’ve kept a sketchbook for many years, and have used different books in different ways over the years.
A lot of sketchbook work has been about exploring new subject matter - drawing leaves, blossoms or children over and over until the subject feels really familiar. I’ve also used sketchbooks to record life, especially on holidays. Sketchbooks have been the perfect space in which to generate ideas - either in written notes, or quick sketches. Still now, paging through old sketchbooks will trigger a bunch of new ideas, and is one reason why my sketchbooks are more valuable to me than my finished artworks. I’ve also used sketchbooks to work on specific projects such as a picture book. Sometimes, throughout the years, I’ve tried to work in themed sketchbooks, with, say , one devoted to studies of leaves, and another to children in action.
Along side all this, I’ve also kept physical diaries on and off throughout the years.
Given that I love to see glimpses into how other people work, I thought I’d share my current sketchbook/journal situation here.
The book that currently goes everywhere with me is my bullet journal, which is a hardcover dotted Moleskine. This book organises my whole life. I’ve tweaked the bullet journalling system for my own purposes, and love how it’s currently working for me (I’m happy to spell that out in a separate post one day). What I love about bullet journalling over a regular diary or a digital app (you may recall that I used to use the app Things to manage my life) is that alongside regular daily, weekly and monthly planning, it’s also a great catch-all for lists of ideas, thoughts on upcoming projects, self-reflection, capturing ideas for future development. So I might have a page containing a bunch of thoughts that I want to share with my block-of-the-monthers in an upcoming video, or a page listing the steps I believe I need to take to see a new project through to completion, or another in which I roughly sketch out how I picture a new art collection to look, with a bunch of quick thumbnail sketches.
As far as sketchbooks go, I currently like to have a large softcover unlined Moleskine notebook on the go. This is slim and light-weight enough to slip in my handbag, just in case I have some time to fill while I’m out and about. The paper in this book is lightweight, so I really only use it for linework - pencil or biro sketches. This is a sketchbook for nutting out ideas, developing characters and scenery for picture books, playing with potential design ideas for new textile artworks. I don’t feel like I have to be frugal with the pages in this book, so I can just be really free with my drawing, without worrying about how successful each sketch is.
Then I also have my large Stillman and Birn Alpha Series sketchbooks. These have beautiful pages that works really well with water/paint. It’s also the sketchbook that I treat with a little more care (unfortunately that comes with a certain amount of pressure to perform, when I open it!). When I’m working in this book, I typically take more time than I do for the quick sketches in my Moleskine book. This is the book where I really like to play with colour (and collage). As a result, it’s also a far more interesting book to flip through. While I used to use the hardcover version, my last three have all been soft covers, as they are much lighter to take in my handbag.
Do you have a favourite sketchbook or journal? How do you use yours?
