The Sketchbook

If a new blank sketchbook is giving you anxiety, you are not alone.  

Sketchbooks have been around for a long time, dating back to the Egyptians who not only painted on tomb walls, but papyrus as well, documenting day to day life.

 

Lately, the daily sketchbook habit is a big thing on social media, just like the daily painting movement that began in 2004. (Lisa Daria, Carol Marine)

 There are artists who are serious sketchbook artists…meaning that is their main intent in creating art. (Dina Brodsky)

There are artists who paint birds over their grocery lists. (Me…haha)

There are artists who create beautiful plein air watercolor journals as they travel through Italy. (Dreama Tolle Perry)

There are hikers who take mini canvas and paints in Altoid tins and hike up great mountains to paint. (Remington Robinson)

There are artists who use the sketchbook to do studies for bigger paintings. (Scott Christensen)

There are artists who fill sketchbooks full of black and white Notans. (Anne Blair Brown)

There are artists who fill notebooks full of human gestures. (Juliette Aristides)

There are artists who work out compositions in pen every night in their notebook. (Edgar Payne)

And then there is Leonardo Da Vinci who filled sketchbooks with art, experiments and inventions!

 

So, where do you fit in?

I use my sketchbooks for working out composition, value, value patterns and color harmonies (poster studies) for paintings.

I’d love to be as creative as some of the dedicated sketchbook artists and I applaud them…but in the end…I have to use mine as a means to an end.

We’re each blessed with different ways that we see the world.  I had a friend in High School who could paint anyone or anything she saw by memory…to immediate recognition.  I took that to mean that she was a true artist and that I could never do that…so, I didn’t qualify.

If you’re thinking that way, give yourself grace in the fact that the elements of art can be learned by anyone!  

Some may come to the table gifted in endless ideas and creativity.  Some may come with photographic memories.  Some may be gifted in thoughts of abstraction and some may just be genius in 3D Sculpture.  But for the most part, becoming an artist is mostly hard focused work and anyone can progress with vertical practice models and habits. Drawing, composition, values, color harmony, edges and texture can be learned.  

And…if you don’t want to learn any of that…you can paint just for enjoyment and do whatever you want. My dad painted his entire life.  He took drawing courses…old school, where he sent his drawings by snail mail to be evaluated…but mostly he just played and experimented on his own.  He never cared about learning from the masters or focusing on those important elements of painting. He painted for the pure fun of it…massive paintings of mountains.  If we painted together…he would watch me out of the corner of his eye…and the minute I finished…would say, OK, now come finish mine! Sometimes I envy that!

If you want to jump in and study seriously, I’d suggest books by Edgar Payne, John Carlson, and Robert Henri.  If you want to jump in for the pure joy of creating art, grab a copy of “You Do You” by Danny Gregory.  Grab that one anyway even if you are serious, because then you won’t take yourself so seriously!

 

There is room for you in the art world!

Happy Painting!