a perfect sketchbook

I’ve not had much time to focus on my drawing recently as my son and his girlfriend have been here, and I find I can’t get in to a zone very easily when I’m parenting, plus I’ve had a few extra shifts at the Charleston Literary Festival so my creativity has been a bit on the back burner. For inspiration, I headed for YouTube and found that a lot of the people that do their art online – either a ‘follow along with me’ or a demo – have sketchbooks full of glorious finished pieces, ready to be scanned and marketed. I also find the idea that these types of videos are particularly instructive (especially for beginners) problematic. While showing a time-lapse or edited video of putting painting together can be engaging to watch, there is no discussion as to why a colour doesn’t work, or what should be included or excluded from a composition. It also cements the illusion that an artist sits down in front of a view or an image and knocks it out in 6 minutes, and I can’t help feeling that really doesn’t do justice to the artist’s hard work, nor is it really informing the viewer about how the painting is put together, for all its draw-with-me implications. It’s great for promotion but I find it quite soulless.

Of course, I am all in favour of artists monetising their skills but I sometimes wonder if the term “sketchbook” has a bit of a double meaning. Perhaps there’s a distinction between people who are full-time artists, and so their sketchbook is a place to experiment and explore and be free of the constraints of client work, and people who enjoy producing finished artworks so a sketchbook becomes more of a portfolio. I find seeing sketchbooks of people who have one (accomplished) style, and are producing a piece of art at the end of each video can create a sense of overwhelm as they are undoubtedly excellent and aspirational but show no sense of process. I’m sure it also comes down to personality, and if you have a technique that you like and can practise it and hone it and it can then create an income, I salute you. I, however, enjoy the sketchbooks where there are different styles, and elements, and media, and subjects, and mistakes as to me, these represent more of an artistic journey, and show an openness which I really appreciate.

I get quite a few comments about my sketchbook tours over the variety of drawings and how much people enjoy seeing my artwork, and that is hugely gratifying as it really is an honest representation of how I work.

Here are some of my latest sketchbook pages. Firstly, my Clairefontaine Goldmine sketchbook. This is mixed media paper but I find it takes the paint better than my Beta from Stillman & Birn.

Here’s a painting after George Bergen for my Charleston substack and a painting of a rhino from Care for Wild‘s Instagram.

You can see the textured paper here with a graphite tablet and sepia pencil drawing of some sand dunes. I love drawing my cat, and here I used a stubby little Blackwing pencil and some brush markers.

In my Beta sketchbook, I’m enjoying using ink which seems to work really well on the smooth paper:

I spent some time in the garden while it was sunny (left) and looking out on some roses in the rain (right) using a range of inks. I’m never normally interested in drawing flowers but there are lots of osteospermums in our garden and they have a lovely shape. I’m really pleased with how the roses came out too.

I have a quiet week ahead as I’m not teaching, Birds of the Mogollon Wildway is safely in Albuquerque, the Charleston Festival is over, and the weather is delightfully cool and calm. I’m just getting over what I strongly suspect is Covid so it’s good to have some time to retreat to more gentle exploration in my sketchbook.