Things I love: buying new sketchbooks.
Things I don’t love: starting new sketchbooks.
Over the years, I’ve had some very nice sketchbooks both purchased for myself and gifted to me. Some with gold foil on the cover; some from expensive brands with built-in pen holders; some with high quality paper that lays flat. All have been great books to neatly stack next to my desk and collect dust.
It feels weird to admit that I have never completed a sketchbook cover to cover. Every time I tried to start one, the blank pages intimidated me. My thoughts were filled with: What medium should I use to sketch? What should the subject be? This sketchbook is too nice to mess up! Ack! I still don’t know that to draw! A few times I was able to set aside my trepidations and fill the first few pages with stuff. However, those terribly useless thoughts would creep back in, and I would draw a “bad page.” The bad pages would wreck my confidence; in a fit of insecurity, I would rip the pages out and set the book aside for “when I got better at drawing.”
In the moment, those bad pages felt like proof against my talent. Proof to myself and the world that maybe I wasn’t that great an artist after all. This thinking is probably why I’ve always turned to loose-leaf paper for sketching and doodling. Those “failures” could be easily eradicated as crumpled balls in the waste bin.
In addition to my general anxiety over not drawing well, there was also the issue of time. Having time to sit and draw in a sketchbook has always felt like time better spent making finished works. Being an artist is 100% my chosen career, however, unfortunately it has not had 100% of my working time. My circumstances require me to fit art into the small spaces between being a responsible adult and having a full-time high-pressure day job.
In the early days, I was focused on accepting any and all commissions that came my way. Keeping deadlines was important to me (and still is) so I would spend all my free time completing works for others as best I could. Eventually, I found the confidence to try selling at conventions and art fairs. I closed commissions and shifted my priorities to making paintings and illustrations for those events. All through these endeavors, my spare time lessened and I stopped doing events. With no commissions or events to worry over, I used my free time to build up my portfolio and work on personal projects. Even though I was working at my own pace, the feeling of time scarcity never went away. I didn’t feel like there was any time for practice or sketching unless it was in service of a new finished work. Without realizing it, I was pushing myself towards burnout.
The turning point has been the burn out I am currently experiencing with my day job. My job is a toxic swamp on the levels of a Miyazaki game, and it has been slowly and steadily draining my creativity in recent years. Asking myself to plan out ideas for a finished work has become daunting and frustrating to the point that I wanted to just draw – anything at all. The blank pages of a sketchbook still felt scary, but in the absence of creativity was a simple desire to sketch sprouted.
Fearing my time would be wasted making a bad drawing was still there, but I was now wasting my time drawing nothing at all. Nothing for finished works and nothing to ball up in shame. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Art was becoming a void.
That void has led me to a lot of doom scrolling recently. I’ve spent way too many hours browsing Youtube hoping for inspiration, but mostly just watching whatever seemingly interesting thing placed in my feed. Thankfully, one of those interesting things was a video by a channel appropriately titled Sketchbook Skool by Danny Gregory. The topic of the video was how Mr. Gregory got good at drawing through consistent practice, however, in telling his story he shared the best piece of advice, “fit the sketchbook inside of this life that I already had, not replace it.”
Much of his story felt relatable despite the difference in circumstances. Mr. Gregory felt drawing could help him in a time of life that was not easy to navigate. He too, had a demanding job and a busy home life with many of his hours “spoken for.” Rather than carve out hours for sketching, he sketched in all the small moments like on break at work, at lunch, and on transit. He filled sketchbooks with drawings of the people and things around him. His workplace, buildings, people, objects in his home. I would fret so much about what to draw, but there is always a subject at hand, by looking up and around.
Listening to his experience and practice was inspiring. For so long I felt like I had no time at all, but I did have time! In between the major tasks and duties of my day, I too had small moments that I use for sketching. All this time I have been completely mistaken that sketching had to come at the cost of time allotted for working on portfolio pieces.
In addition to sharing his story, Mr. Gregory also shared the pages of his first few sketch books. Without shame he admitted those early works were full of scratchy and unconfident lines. His drawings were not perfectly curated in a book meant to share with others. Instead, his books were true sketchbooks filled with pages of observing and learning. Naturally, his drawings became better overtime, and it made me realize I have had the wrong perspective about my own sketching. My lack of confidence with my ability to fill a sketchbook with “good drawings” manifested in fear of proving that I am actually very bad at drawing. However, a sketchbook is not a single work of art. It is a culmination of artworks over time, thus making it proof of progress and improvement.
With newfound determination, I finished Mr. Gregory’s video and picked out a sketchbook from my dusty pile. It’s not filled with fancy paper, and I didn’t pay a lot for it, but it does have a convenient pen holder attached to the spine. Next, I picked out a retractable ball point pen that matches the cover of the sketchbook close enough to look intentional. Lastly, I reminded myself that sketching is not the same as making a finished artwork. Rather sketching is its own thing, and it is important for growing skills and nurturing talent.
In the days since watching Mr. Gregory’s video, I have committed to taking my sketchbook with me and sketching when feasible. I drew flowers, as that has become my default subject, but also started drawing things around me too. Even when the landscape and objects around me seemed banal, I still drew them. Much like the sketches in Mr. Gregory’s early pages, my sketches are scratchy and lack confidence right now. However, I am letting the joy of drawing overshadow the now diminishing fear of being “bad at drawing.” My sketches were not good, but the act of sketching felt so rewarding that I didn’t want to feel shame about it. It's amazing how a shift in mindset can change how something is perceived.
With my creativity tank currently empty from burnout, I am looking forward to filling up my sketchbook with random things. I don’t need creativity to draw the mug next to me or my beautiful shepherd sleeping soundly at my feet. I just need a pen and the wherewithal to see the places in my day where I can fit my sketchbook practice. The trepidations I have with sketching won’t go away overnight, but I can already see progress with my shifting mindset in the form of several filled pages. Good drawings and bad drawings alike, I am excited at the prospects of filling up my first ever sketchbook!