Exercise 1.1. - What is your relationship with your sketchbook.

Exercise 1.1 - What is your relationship with your sketchbook?

Since the moment that I’ve made a commitment to draw daily in order to get my skills up to the standard that making a graphic novel requires or to improve my general art skills, a sketchbook has been an indispensable part in my development. 

My relationship with my sketchbook is very intimate, it is the place where mistakes and frustrations pertaining art are allowed without caring whether the world will see it.

Below you can find a list of my sketchbooks, all of which I use it for different purposes. Some of them I gained a special relationship, where I carry them everywhere (the red moleskine pocket sketchbook) and try to sketch anything that I find of interest , literally anything, be it a set of screws in a fence, ornamented windows, my hands, some nice reference that I find on the internet. With him, I can “tell” everything I want.

The first sketchbook that I bought, I remember being scared of using it as I felt the pressure that I needed to always make “masterpieces” or anything “worthy” on that sketchbook. As a result, I would end up doodling on notebooks or pieces of paper not appropriate for that purpose.
Then one day, I stumbled upon a video on YouTube about an artist showing his sketchbooks, including his very first, it was then that I had the epiphany to use the sketchbook for anything drawing related (as long as it wasn’t a well refined illustration), including those doodles without being afraid of the outcome.

From that time, I have been more confortable using the sketchbook and 5 years later, I’m still using it, but only since 3 years from now that I have been using it quite regularly.  This “hunger” to draw coincided when I first visited a comic-book shop, a proper one, and got mesmerised with that art form and  since then, although I was studying in a different career, I started to slowly gravitating towards learning everything I needed about comics, buying instructional art books, graphic novels, going to museums, and the sketchbook has been an essential part in my studies.

Bearing in mind that I drew since a very young age, I was never aware back then that sketchbooks existed, so my drawings were mostly made on loose papers and as a result, have vanished.

My collection of sketchbooks...some of them full, others in progress, others still with plastic cover

After starting this course and reading some of the OCA's suggested books like "Sketch your world" by J. Hobbs (2014) and "Sketchbooks: The hidden art of Designers, Illustrators & Creatives" by R.Richard Brereton (2012), I  gained a greater insight as to how to use my sketchbook more effectively and became far more confident with using it. I've also noticed that I started looking to my surroundings with a bigger awareness, always thinking of what is of interest around me, being more observant and always alert and ready to use my sketchbook when practical. Being more mindful of that, I've made sure to put my small sketchbook in my pocket before I leave home.

What do you notice about your selections?

Reading through some of the students comments, the comment which summed up the way that I currently see my sketchbook was "My sketchbook is my most consistent form of art practice".
For the future, one thing that I'd like to see using in my sketchbook is to document or show my process.

Can you identify themes or areas that you can focus on as you start this course?

One area I'm  needing improvement is planning my illustrations, doing research and notes and being overall more pragmatic in the way that I approach drawing.

 I find it difficult to document my process as I create a picture, since I feel it breaks that spontaneity, but I'll focus on it as I go through the course.

The theme which I'll focus on will be "The Everyday", a very broad topic, which has potential to multiple interpretations.

Another area that I could expand on is to refine some of my sketches and analyse them in terms of what was successful or unsuccessful about it. Only by analysing is possible to improve.  

Below you will find some of my sketchbook pages, where you will get an insight of what I put in them.
I was initially reluctant on posting some of my worst sketches but it is because of those that I’ve learned the most and improved.

I work in a secondary school, and some classrooms
have things which you see everyday
but the eyes ignore it.
After starting this course I became more aware
of my surroundings, and I now am constantly,
looking for interesting subjects which could create
a great sketch.

Also sketched whilst queuing at a museum.

Sketched whilst at a queue to a Museum.

I like to sketch thinks I'm not very
confortable with.

This sketch I thought of a country boy arriving to a
big city and come across what it is total destruction caused by a Robot.

This sketch was made 5 years ago in my
sketchbook, where i was
drawing along a perspective tutorial,
5 years later as I looked through old sketchbooks,
I found this sketch and finished it
by adding people to it,

Sitting in a Cafe, I started by drawing a
single figure and then added more figures and added an environment
where their poses would be suitable to be in it, so it came
the idea of a bakery. 

This sketch was a "happy accident" as I
accidentally dropped two blotches of ink in what later became
"the patient's" eyes, so in order not to waste
a page of my precious sketchbook, I expanded on the drawing
without a clue where it would take me.
As lines were being made, ideas started appearing.

This was a sketch made whilst sitting in a cafe. I had no idea of what to
draw on that day, and I learned that when you feel
uninspired, to just go out and "Sketch your world" (In the words of James Hobbs).

The top sketches were made sitting at the beach and the bottom ones
sre some head studies

I use my sketchbook to stay proficient at drawing
the human figure

This sketch was meant to be an illustration
for this exercise but I later decided that it
was irrelevant toward to topic

Sometimes I see an interesting picture and try to sketch it,
particularly where there's figures with captivating dynamic.

My first sketch in my first sketchbook ...

I had just bought a Brush pen and did some
random doodles

Tried to come up with sci-fi vehicles

Urban sketching in my trip to Madrid

Sometimes I just start sketching without a destination.

A week after I started the course, I started focusing on sketching the "Everyday",
and thought of sketching this pub, not that I use it but it's a
building which is familiar to me since I pass by it everyday.

This is a collection of post-it notes that I sketched on before the course,
and used them to sketch common things which describe my everyday.

I have filled exactly 3 sketchbooks so far, and had to pick the sketches which best reflect my current relationship with my sketchbook.