Finding Flow in Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks can be a pivotal part of our art practice – but only if we enjoy using them.
I could not do without my sketchbooks. I never have a plan, rarely have I come up with something in a sketchbook that I want to reproduce on a larger scale and what comes out is mainly ugly. The pages stick together and any photos I take of them are generally little crops of a much larger mess.
But I just love them.
Sketchbook play
sketchbook play
Trying things out….even if they don’t always work
“Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree.” (Terry Pratchett)
There are so many ways to use sketchbooks and I’ve tried out a lot! But some I just didn’t enjoy. These end up relegated to the ‘well that’s not for me’ pile.
I’ve brought them away on holidays with me – always a non-starter. I feel I should do it because that’s what ‘real artists’ do but I just want to drink wine and be on holidays. I will try again (God loves a trier) but I might have to face it, I’m not a holiday sketcher. (Susan Knapp does this wonderfully in her exquisite travel sketchbooks.)
Inspired by artists like Libby Scott who does amazing sketchbook work out in the open I went on a covert operation to Fitzgerald Park in Cork city and tried to be a plein air sketcher. I hid in bushes with my dog and sketched people. I could not have looked more like a stalker. The dog kept yanking the lead which made for some very expressive lines. It was a fun experiment but once again, I’m sure I’m not a plein air sketcher…
After taking a wonderful colour course by Mark Eanes I tried (and still try) to be an organised colour mixing ninja. I started a colour mixing sketchbook in which I diligently did hundreds of mixes, closed the book and haven’t opened it in 3 months. So, while I do get a great kick out of colour mixing, I am not an organised colour mixing sketchbooker.
Finding my ‘flow’
I mainly use my sketchbooks to meditate – and I thoroughly enjoy the mindlessness of it. I often turn to them when I have no idea what to do. Sometimes I might go in with an idea of something I want to practice but that’s generally out the window in 5 minutes. I pull out the paints, there are 4 or 5 sketchbooks open on the floor and I go at them one at a time leaving the others to dry. Then rinse and repeat until it’s 2am and past my bedtime. My brain goes completely blank except for ‘a bitta blue here’ and ‘a big black line there’ and suddenly the pot of tea has gone cold. I think I try to achieve what artist Jenny Grant describes:
‘Art journaling became my resting place and where I give myself time to recover’.
She describes this process really well in her blogpost - How to be free when painting - starting an art journal.
I have filled about 15 sketchbooks in the last year. I thoroughly enjoy leafing through them and get a little jolt of recognition when I see something that reminds me of a day or a feeling. Or sometimes I’ll see some shape or mark and realise I’ve started using that in my paintings without even realizing where it came from. They act as a sort of record of the journey. I can pick out the small steps – that time I tried gouache and it did NOT go well, or when I started using a lot of linework which is a staple for me now.
There are a million different ways to use a sketchbook and through trial and error I have a way that works for me now – but am open to change!
If you’ve found your favourite way I would love to hear about it. Just comment below or in the Instagram post.
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