As an artist part of the training is teaching students different ways of using a sketchbook and I once wrote a piece on that for Red Fox Pottery
An Example of using a sketchbook to learn how things work (sometime between 2008 and 2011)
Though I have always kept sketchbooks intermitently and in some ways I still do, I have sketchbooks in my coat pocket so when I am out and about I can grab one from my pocket and sketch wherever I am. and these get filled up say when I am riding on the tram with someone or sat by the beach, I draw what catches my eye its about learning life life and what I see.
Daily Sketchbooks Work
This is an ongoing project/
My work really started to change in 2016, I had just finished my Masters and I sat there one May thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to actually be good enough at drawing that I could reach the flow state. And I am so bad at regular practice I decided I had to keep to a schedule of every single day.
When I started, every day I was doing a watercolour, an acrylic, a page of writing and a page of just drawing. Later on my day job teaching design technology was so exhausting I focused on writing and keeping the sketchbook.
It has changed in focus over the years from boats to fruit, to skies and then one day I started drawing buildings, when we were looking at buying a house
Day 1 Drawing and confidence is key, despite kind of knowing how to draw day one I felt stuck quickly
Day 53 I had settled into drawing a bit more
Like I said at first, I was just doing line work it took me years to put colour in my sketchbook.
(I look at this drawing and I love the mark making and wish I could make those marks)
Day 859, and this is the day I finally realised I could draw. This is direct watercolour- no pencils, no pen, just attacking the paper.
Day 3239 with the Isle of Bute Ferry
Recently, I have been using my sketchbook to paint the coastal roads of Scotland using Khadi Papers Sketchbooks, including the front and rear papers, nothing is wasted. Currently, I’m on the Isle of Bute, and it is beautiful. I can’t lie I have looked to see if we could move there, maybe in another few years.
My sketchbook now isn’t really for sharing or being precise and perfect; I like using it to be loose and explore the places I explore digitally. It is for me to do what I want in everyday, just that little bit of creative time.