Exercise 1.3: How personal do you want your sketchbooks to be? To hide, or not to hide?

Where do I stand on how personal my sketchbook should be?

I don't consider myself to be very personal with my sketchbooks, if someone asked me if they could have a look at it, even the worst ones, I wouldn't say no, I would even be glad to show and go through with them, answering any questions.

However, I wouldn't post on social media my worst sketches or the ones which I find the most flattering, I would only post the more refined sketches or the ones which I considered to be the most aesthetically pleasing. I would reveal my sketches differently to different groups of people.

For my tutor and assessors, I would be happy to share my sketchbook provided that it’s relevant with the set coursework,  should it be required to look at the whole sketchbook, I would also be happy with that. I would provide them also some comments about the images or the ideas.

The reason I find to be open for sharing is that there is value in your mistakes, I thank them. If there wasn’t any mistakes, if I was risk averse, I wouldn’t improve. Therefore I feel happier talking about the “failed” sketches as there’s so much to learn from them.

For obvious reasons, I would be wary to show the world, friends included, sketches of political or sexual connotations, I’ve never made it before but you never know.

However, should I have really bad sketches, sketches which I do not wish the world to see, or images which are still in progress and I want to keep it secret until it is finished, I would create a “hiding place” at the back of my sketchbook, to keep people unaware of its existence.

Something practical in terms of being easy to retrieve when needed, I looked on Pinterest through the suggested link (www.pinterest.co.uk/emmap1619/books-with-pockets-envelopes-or-hidden-bits/) and the pocket which caught my attention was a beige colour post office envelope to stick in the back hardcover of my sketchbook.

The idea to put the envelope was my initial idea, however, upon drawing these sketches, I recalled  of my Moleskine pocket sketchbook which had a pocket like the second drawing above. I discarded the idea since it would be impractical to use it in a portrait oriented sketchbook due to risk of the papers within the pocket falling off if I use the sketchbook in a landscape orientation.

I had an A3 envelope at home, so I folded and cut so  it could fit within my A4 sketchbook.

I liked this idea because you’re able to seal it and thus you get a bit more safety in that sense. It will be useful to store the little books from exercise 1.2., or bits that I’m uncomfortable showing the world, including family and closest friends.