Thinking About Sketchbooks in General...
Thus far, I’m still keeping up with the 30-day sketchbook challenge I mentioned in the last blog post. I do find this one easier to do, mainly because I’m giving myself permission to just do whatever I want (which actually is the rule for this particular challenge). If the daily prompt doesn’t inspire me, I don’t try to force it and instead do something else.
(Okay, I’m about to do some longwinded rambling. Buckle in or skip, as desired.)
As for the title of this blog post—”Am I Missing the Point?”—it’s just something I’m thinking about, as I do this challenge. I don’t know if the modern sketchbook is precisely “controversial”, but that’s the word that’s coming to my slightly sleep-deprived brain this morning. The concept of the sketchbook is nothing new. “Real artists” and casual hobbyists alike have kept bound books of their sketches for probably as long as paper has been accessible to them. In more recent years, from what I gather, the sketchbook has experienced a revival or a surge in interest—or maybe it’s more accurate to say that the sketchbook has undergone a reimagining. Many artists passionately extoll the virtues of sketching and the value of keeping a sketchbook. There are even people who specialize in being “sketchbook artists”. I don’t know if I fully understand what any of it means; until recently I hadn’t actually looked into it or given sketchbooks much thought—except to observe that it seemed awkward to draw or paint into a bound book—but I’ve certainly noticed that there’s a lot of attention focused on keeping sketchbooks, these days.
So where’s the “controversy” I alluded to earlier? I don’t know; I’m functioning on a sleepy brain, remember! I guess what I mean is that some people seem almost aggressive in their insistence that The Sketchbook is the One True Way… And others are pushing back against the “Sketchbook as Artform” movement.
Watch a few videos about art, and the algorithm will soon inundate you with videos about how to fill your sketchbook, flip-throughs of completed sketchbooks (typically filled with gorgeous drawings and paintings), and other sketchbook-related content. There are those, again, who are “full-time sketchbook artists”. (Which means what, exactly? That they only work in sketchbooks? Is that just their preferred way of working? But why? I’m not really sure! Probably ought to watch a few more of their videos, because they most likely explain that, at some point…)
Then there are people issuing gentle reminders (or merely making the observation) that sketchbooks traditionally have been more private places for practice and work you do just for yourself—a place to let loose without worrying if something is incomplete, not quite right, or even downright ugly.
Instead, some people today seem to want their sketchbooks to be perfect, or at least “display-worthy”, which (in the view of the old-school artist) entirely defeats their purpose. There’s talk about dreading marring a page and “ruining” a sketchbook. To be fair, these worries are quickly followed by assurances that imperfection is okay—and that indeed one of the purposes of a sketchbook is to try new things, make mistakes, and learn from them—but clearly the worry is still there, along with the implication that we want the sketchbook to be beautiful.
If it sounds like I’m disparaging the so-called modern sketchbook artist, that’s not my intention. I’m sure there are as many definitions of a sketchbook as there are people keeping them, and I sympathize with the desire for things to be beautiful from start to finish. That’s natural—but maybe not a realistic or healthy goal, especially for most of us mere mortals with less than amazing artistic skill. If you feel pressure to make your sketchbook as consistently good as possible—and to share it publicly—where do you actually do the “ugly” background work that might once have gone there?
What's My Current Opinion and Plan?
This has turned out to be even more navel-gaze-y than usual. Sorry about that! I’ll try to wrap it up, now.
I’m spending some time watching videos and reading about sketchbooks now, mainly out of curiosity, to see if I can ever fully grasp what it is about them that has enraptured so many people. From a purely practical point of view, I’m not sure I even like working in a bound book. The bulk of the other pages can be awkward, and sometimes the book doesn’t want to lie flat… If you ever want to reorganize your work (by theme, for instance), you’re out of luck—and what if you make something you want to frame or use for a card? But then again, I do like the idea of things being bound together and seeing your progress in chronological order.
I have both blank sketchbooks and blocks of paper, so I’ll definitely be using both—and one of these days, I’d like to try my hand at making my own handmade sketchbook.
As for the need for a private space to experiment without fear of judgement, I don’t know… No-one is forcing anyone to upload photos of every page of their sketchbook, even if we see others doing it online. We can make our own decisions about what to share, or whether to share any of it at all.
I often put things on my blog that I’d consider “failures”, or at least not wildly successful attempts. I post photos of drawings/paintings with ugly parts or areas that could be improved upon (or else I’d never post anything!). But I also have the comments turned off, so if people ever do happen to find this blog, I don’t have to hear what anyone else thinks about it. It’s not that I think anyone is likely to bother to leave rude comments on my blog… but to be honest, sometimes praise or compliments can make you feel just as self-conscious and reluctant to share, in their own way. It’s just another thing to deal with in the back of your mind. Keeping things comment-free means this essentially is just one giant digital sketchbook for my own benefit, easily accessible on any device. Others are welcome to look, too, if they like, so long as I don’t have to worry about uninvited critiques.
If we enjoy making art, it doesn’t have to be good to serve a valid purpose. (Who’s to say what’s “good”, anyway?) As long as I’m enjoying the process, that’s reason enough to keep going.
Okay, time to share a few more days of the “30 Days of Sketchbook Joy”.
Day 3: Houseplant
This prompt is pretty straightforward, but because I’ve done potted plants a few times fairly recently, both with drawing/painting and collage, I wanted to put a twist on it. So I thought, what if the plant itself is the house—or the pot the plant grows in is also a house?
It’s still fairly simple. I think this would be more fun with extra details, but in the moment of drawing things, I have trouble coming up with cute details… It requires more planning, for me.
I sketched lightly in pencil, then added watercolor and finished with outlines in black ink pen.
Day 4: Olive Green & Soft Pink
I like this color combo, but had a hard time settling on what to paint. I think I may have also felt pressed for time, so didn’t want to do anything too complicated. In the end, I went for something very basic. It wasn’t quite what I’d envisioned, but that’s how it usually goes.
At this point, I’d free-hand painted some trees, lawn, and a house in watercolor, then gone back with some acrylic paint pen details.
Looking at it the next day, I decided it would be better with some darker green to balance it out a bit and increase the contrast. For that, I used just a green marker. I also added more details in the acrylic paint pens. I think it was an improvement, and I like it much better, now.
Day 5: Olive Green & Soft Pink, # 2
The next “official” prompt was “Master Study”. I had already looked into that and decided it wasn’t for me, right now. I have no idea what I’d do a study on and don’t want to spend time figuring it out. Since we’re encouraged to go our own way, I felt fine about going back to the previous prompt and giving that another try, instead.
One of the first things that popped into my head when I first read the “olive green and soft pink” prompt was collage, but I hadn’t had time or energy for that on the previous day. On day 5, I was ready.
This first photo is an “in progress” shot. I’d sketched a rough outline in pencil, painted the sky and ground with watercolor, and glued down the background row of collage. I was in the process of cutting and arranging the next row of trees.
Here , I’ve glued down the next row of trees, as well as some other finer details, such as the path and fence. Not much more left to collage…
And my final result, after adding a few more collage elements and some acrylic paint pen details.
It was a bit of a struggle to decide how much to add. There might have been more places where extra contrast could have helped, but I didn’t want to go too far, so I erred on the side of caution.
There’s something satisfying about collage, and I love having something fun to do with my gel prints and other painted/decorated papers.
Day 6: A Material You Don't Reach For
I had a few options for this prompt, but I ended up going with the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Graphite Colors. They’re an interesting medium—basically watercolor with graphite mixed in—but for whatever reason, I haven’t used them that much. I do enjoy them, though: The graphite makes these colors very moody and intense, and it granulates beautifully. Apparently you can also get a bit of a shine on the graphite by polishing a painting once it’s dry, but that’s not something I’ve ever tried.
I kept this one very plain. First, I swatched the six paints straight from the palette, lifting a little in spots to show the range and add interest. Then I filled the rest of the page with more “watercolor river stones” by painting a shape in clean water, then adding drops and swipes of diluted graphite colors (wet-on-wet technique).
After it fully dried, I outlined each stone in black pen.
And these last two photos are more zoomed-in shots of the page. This technique is very simple, but lots of fun to do. Granulating colors add interest, but it works and is beautiful with non-granulating pigments, too.
I think I’m going to be adding some more details to yesterday’s sketchbook page, so I’ll save that one until next blog post!
