"Sketchbook art" may be a new concept yo you but it can revolutionize your creativity and your experience of the everyday.
The video version of this essay.
"Sketchbook art" may be a new concept yo you but it can revolutionize your creativity and your experience of the everyday.
The video version of this essay.
welcome to art for all the sketchbook skool podcast. I'm your host, Danny Gregory. I'm the author of a dozen or so. Books on art and creativity. And I'm a sketchbook artist and the title of this episode, how a sketchbook can change life seems like a grand promise, but I assure you a sketchbook can change your life. I know a lot of people. Myself included whose lives were changed pretty radically just by starting to make art in a sketchbook. Sketchbooks are the most important tool a creative person can have. Your sketchbooks can teach you so very much. Well, let's start by talking about what I don't mean by keeping a sketchbook. I don't think of sketchbooks as just the first draft of your creativity. So I'm not talking about big fat newsprint pads filled with scrappy ten second life drawings, exercises that were, were done in charcoal and smudged and smearing. And I don't mean random dog-eared cheap and nasty books filled with scrawls and half-baked ideas for major projects to be done in other media. For sketchbook artists, a sketchbook is an end in itself. It's the final product. It's an art piece and it can be very beautiful and it can take so many forms. Your sketchbook is an opportunity to use all of the tools at an artist's disposal. Pen and ink watercolor, colored pencils, markers, pastels, guash acrylic collage. We paint you name it, and you can work with it in your sketchbook. But the most important thing to put into a sketchbook is you, your sketchbook is an opportunity to express yourself, to take what's in your head and your heart. And to put them down on paper. I like to think of my sketchbook as a journal, as a diary, as the story of my life, starting to fill a sketchbook, doesn't require some special skills or even particular confidence in your ability to draw. It's a safe place, no matter what your skill level. When I drew in my very first sketchbook in my late thirties, it was the first drawing that I had done since I was a little kid. My sketchbook allow me to experiment, to explore, to grow in a safe and private place. And over the years I filled over a hundred sketchbooks and they've taught me so much next. Let's talk about some of the benefits of keeping a sketchbook and obvious one is that your schedule can go with you everywhere. It's small enough to carry in your bag or even in your pocket. And that's really important because it means that you don't need a studio filled with supplies to make art. You don't need expensive equipment. You don't need to wait for a class or a workshop to begin to make art. You just need to reach into your pocket. And pull out your sketchbook and he might pull it out anywhere on the bus and the doctor's waiting room in bed on the couch. While you're watching TV on the plane to your vacation, you can keep your sketchbook in your office and take it with you to lunch. When your sketchbook is in your pocket, you have so many opportunities to make art. To make art rather than stare out the window or read the paper or check Facebook or twiddle your thumbs pocket. There's so many times each day for you to learn and experiment and develop your creativity. Instead of art, making, being a special event, it can become an everyday part of your life. And when it does, your skills will develop and you'll start to think and to see like an artist 24 seven. Your sketchbook is also an opportunity to record your life, to draw and paint everyday things you encounter to turn the parking lot of the supermarket into a page in your book to turn the conference, call into another page, to record the things in your life that are beautiful, but maybe overlooked the light on a window. Sill the posture of your cat napping on the couch shapes in your cereal bowl. View out the train window. Everywhere you look, you can find beauty and your sketchbook allows you to study and recorded for posterity. When you have a book filled with all those experiences and memories, you realize how rich your life is. When we think about art, we think about portraits, landscapes, still lifes, nudes, but in your sketchbook, There are no limits to your subject matter. You can, you can draw and write about anything that you want. I've joined garbage trucks, toothbrushes my feet, the holes in a piece of toast. It's all fair game. Now, why would you want to draw a, say a little battered suitcase or a crumpled paper towel? Because the more things you draw, the more able you become to draw anything and soon. You'll realize that everything is interesting, that it's interesting to draw a portrait of your mailman as one of a movie star that a pile of laundry can be as beautiful and interesting subject. As a vase of flowers, a rusty old truck is more interesting than a brand new Ferrari or an old wrinkled face. Is more interesting than a supermodels. Perfect. Because also deeply personal in it. You record what you think and experience and imagine you're not doing it for anyone else. You're not trying to fit into trends in the art world. You weren't worried about whether or not someone will buy what you've made. In fact, you may never show it to another living soul. So the art that you're making in your sketchbook is deeply authentic. And by expressing yourself, you'll learn so much about who you are and where you fit into the world. Of course, your sketchbook doesn't have to be a hundred percent private. You can pull it out and share it with a friend over coffee. You can photograph some of its pages and share them on social media. You can get feedback from people you trust and admire. That'll help you to develop further. And he can keep some pages entirely to yourself. It's very different than doing a large painting on canvas or painting in a workshop or a life drawing class. This is for you, your place and you have complete control. Another advantage. Sketchbooks are cheap. You can buy a really good one for less than a decent lunch, 10 to 20 bucks. That gives you a hundred plank canvases. And he can fill those canvases with an inexpensive ballpoint pen. If you like, there's, there's no need to be precious about your art supplies. No need to hoard it for a rainy day or a special occasion. And because the cost is so low, you can afford to take risks. If you aren't happy with the page that you're working on, it costs you virtually nothing to turn the page and start again. Experimenting is so important. It helps you to gain confidence. It helps you to find the tools and the media that best express your inner vision. And it's really fun. You can splash ink, you can layer watercolors. You can put down wild ideas that seem crazy, but might just turn to a great new direction for your creativity. The risk is low. The reward. Yes to develop a creative habit and your sketchbook will help. That doesn't mean that you need to become a professional artist. It just means that you make creativity into a regular part of your everyday life. When you have a creative habit, your life improves in so many ways. First of all, you gain confidence in your skills. You can draw better, you can paint better. And for that's for the simple reason that you've been doing a lot and on a regular basis, practice makes, well, if not perfect, then proficient your sketchbook because it's so portable. So inexpensive, so available. Is the easiest way for art-making to become a daily habit scientific study. Was it shown that drawing and painting can reduce stress and increase your happiness? And I can confirm those results from my own life. After you overcome your initial anxiety about whether or not you have talent to draw, you'll discover how deeply meditative it is to do observational drawings in your sketchbook. How relaxing it is to study an object in real detail. And to record what you see on the page, time flows the voice in your head quietens, and you emerge from a 20 minute drawing session reinvigorated as if you'd gone to the spa or taken a long refreshing nap. It's awesome. And you have all you need in your pocket. Have you ever kept a diary? Have you ever written down experiences of the day, the conversations, the, the ideas that troubles? Well, a sketchbook can perform the same function, but it's the next step in that process? Because you're creating a visual record that goes beyond the words that occur to you to include the feelings you can't express any other way, feelings. You may not even know that you have. Looking back at the drawings you've made unlocks memories and emotions in a way that no other record can, it's a high definition archive of your life made in ink and color that will deepen you as a person bringing you insight and pleasure. And peace. There's so many wonderful reasons to keep a sketchbook and to have art making as a part of your life. It's changed my life for the better. And I hope you'll give yourself the chance to do the same. This is a special episode of art for all, because it's also available as a video with lots of visual examples of what incredible sketchbooks look like. And it's also available as a transcript on our blog. If you'd like to see it go to the sketchbook school channel on YouTube, I'll add a direct link to the video and to the blog in the show notes for this episode. All right. Thanks for joining me today. I'll create something new for you again next week until then and Danny Gregory. And this is art for all.