introduction to sketchbook-keeping

The focus involved with sketchbook-keeping can be useful for everyone, despite the strength of their relationship to art-making. My thoughts here apply to artists and non-artists alike. Sketchbook-keeping is an artistic behavior that trains the maker to trust their subconscious decisions, be able to archive, reflect on, and commit to their most primitive tendencies if done with confidence of flow and voice. I believe that these benefits can (and should) be applied to areas of life, even areas that may not seem so artistically-driven.

Sketchbooks are an opportunity to learn about the way you think

First, lets broaden the idea of what a sketchbook is (or should be). I like to think of my sketchbooks like a puzzle. When you’re solving a puzzle, do you pick up a piece and then immediately find it’s neighboring counterpart? Probably not (if yes, good for you). Your sketchbook should not be a series of perfectly fit pieces to a puzzle — it should not be one successful idea (drawing, writing, painting) to the next. It should be more like work-in-progress snapshots of you solving the puzzle. Maybe part of you has started to sort the pieces by color, and, at the same time, you’ve found two corner pieces that are asking to be solved. It’s all over the place at first, but once you’re in the flow and focus of putting the pieces together…you figure out your own little system. The system you’re trying to figure out when creating your sketchbook will give you insight to your tendencies and patterns as a thinker and maker.

Now, think of your sketchbook as the airport landing for all your ideas. Some ideas stay, some board another flight and you’ll never see them again. Either way, they have a ticket to the spot that is the pages of your sketchbook.

Keeping a sketchbook can be one of the most useful artistic practices. It has the potential to guide the artist and foster their relationship to their process and hand-mind coordination. Sketchbooks allow for the documentation of different phases and thought-processes. This can be useful for finding pattern and meaning to potentially have a better understanding of your natural tendencies as a(n artistic) person. I like to think of sketchbooks as quasi-journals; many of my sketchbooks become to-do lists, schedules, words — I don’t like to hold myself accountable for keeping a display-worthy book. Mark-making and drawing are two of the most automatic modes of processing information. In order to preserve this primitive way of understanding surroundings, find peace with lack of cohesion from page to page. Your sketchbook should be your place to scribble until you find some sort of meaning…or not.

I recommend watching this TED Talk spoken by my former Professor, Dr. Andrea Kantrowitz, which may spark a greater appreciation for Thinking Through Drawing.

Here is a PDF book “Wabi-Sabi” by Richard Martin regarding the Japanese idea focusing on the beauty of the “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.”

I’ve analyzed some of my old sketchbooks and came up with a few category titles for the types of entries I have:

1. Word lists

2. Observational drawings

3. Testing materials

4. Planning a composition/thumbnail sketches

5. Color combining, shape compositions, or drawing intuitively

6. Technical notes on new materials, processes, artists

7. Lists, schedules, to-do, daily observations…

My favorite sketchbooks are Handbook Journal Co. Sketchbooks because their paper has the slightest tooth to it. It takes watercolor decently well, but alcohol based markers do bleed through (I kind of like that though).

I also bind my own sketchbooks or use a ring binder, filofax style folio in order to have a variety of papers…