Sketchbook Review

I finally finished my latest sketchbook (Sept ‘23-Feb ‘24) so I sat down this morning to do a little reflection and review. The most glaring feature that stands out for me is that the pages swing wildly between mediums and kinds of sketchbooking—from collage to practice to illustrated journaling and more.

Intuitive Collage

I really love what I made with collage in this book. These are a few favorites. I moved away from it in the last several years, but in this sketchbook I remembered again why I love it. I think I enjoy the process most of all the other kinds of art. Intuitive collage is where I truly let go and let intuition lead. I feel most connected with my creative self, and the work always ends up surprising me with something I hadn’t consciously seen or understood before.

Illustrated Journaling

And yet, as much as I love the collage work, thumbing back through this book the illustrated journal pages make me smile. They capture something of my life and I’m happy that I worked with a style I really want to develop. Realism in art doesn’t touch me the way wonky illustration does and I want to express myself in that way.

YetI really struggle with this kind of drawing. In every instance while I’m drawing my life, I am convinced that every mark and every image is shit. My inner critic gets so loud with these kind of pages! Much more so than any other kind of art making.

So yeah, the discomfort is probably pointing to something I should not avoid. There’s something alive here that needs more exploring.

Making Pictures

This is another big category of kinds of pages here. What I’m calling “making pictures” is a catch all for when I sketch outdoors or paint something from imagination or experiment with ideas and mark making. I think what I call pictures in my sketchbook are the ones where I set out to create something with a particular intention, and always leads to something interesting (even the failures).

Practice and Learning

This final category are the mostly “ugly pages” interspersed throughout—practice drawings and exercises I do for classes, thumbnails sketches. Essential work for growth and development, but not so nice to look at later. Oh well! Taking classes, practicing figure drawing, studying how other artists approach their work and then seeing what I can do from there…this is important work and I’ll try not to judge the “ugly”

So. Where does this leave me going forward?

More please! More intuitive collage. More illustrated journaling. More pictures and more practice.

IDEALLY, I’d like to create several intuitive collages and visual diary pages every week, AND/ALSO dive into extended sessions of practice and picture explorations—not to mention create other work outside of my sketchbook!

Am I crazy?

Maybe.

With each page in this book I remember what it felt like to make it. Lots of joy. Lots. But also, so much uncertainty. I can get very hung up on time. Wanting to all the things—all the categories—means that I’m constantly trying to finish A to go on to B. OR I get overwhelmed with all the choices and resistance sets in and I do nothing.

I remember in this sketchbook that I worried where I was headed, creatively, and why I seemed to be all over the place and yet unable to commit to one thing.

Feeling lost, I retreated from sharing online, and just dug into my practice, head down.

But now as I flip through the pages I am reminded to look up. See? The work adds up, regardless. And maybe I need to share, again.