How to use that sketchbook you hate

One thing that’s stayed consistent about my sketchbook habit over the years is how it keeps changing and evolving! I recently found that using a sketchbook I really didn’t enjoy working in helped me overcome feeling creatively stuck and find the joy in making art again.

How my sketchbook habit started

About 10 years ago I had a daily sketchbook habit. I would draw something (anything) every day and often share it somewhere online - either on social media or my blog (or both). I didn’t really care about the outcome. The important thing was that I was drawing, enjoying the almost meditative process and feeling happy with the wobbly lines on the page.

After a few years, that daily habit waned a bit. Not completely, but it faded into the background as I started to spend what creative energy I had on designing and making things for my online shop and doing the occasional illustration for clients.

Feeling pressure to create

A few years ago I had some ideas about things I wanted to explore in my work so I decided to play more in my sketchbook. That's how my landscape prints were born. But even as I was playing, I was sharing everything online and wondering what I could do with the finished paintings.

It never felt completely free. There was always an awareness that someone was ‘watching’ or would see what I’d created. And a thought in the back of my mind about how to sell what I made. All of that meant that I shared some drawings I wasn’t totally happy with and felt a little bit stifled sometimes because I was aware that I would be sharing what I had created with other people.

Since then my sketchbook habit almost (but not entirely) fizzled out. It felt like there was pressure around it. that what I drew needed to be of a certain standard or be part of a process of designing a new card or print. And that pressure meant I almost stopped drawing and painting, at least drawing and painting just for fun.

4 new sketchbooks

A couple of months ago, I decided I wanted to build up a regular sketchbook practice again and felt quite excited about it, so I treated myself to some new sketchbooks. I had plans which resulted in me buying 4 sketchbooks - 2 medium-sized sketchbooks and 2 mini (very portable) sketchbooks.

So I had 4 sketchbooks - one for painting, one for drawing or mixed media, and 2 corresponding mini sketchbooks.

I’m happy to say, this is not a story where I explain how I bought the sketchbooks and failed to use them. Something else happened. I started using all 4 sketchbooks, each in slightly different ways and I love them all.

Fear of the sketchbook page

But there was one week where I was finding it really difficult to allow myself to sit down and make marks on the page. Fear had crept in (again). That niggling feeling of what I created needing to be perfect or sellable.

I wanted to draw or paint but I was nervous in case something went 'wrong' and even started to feel a bit anxious at the thought of sitting down to draw. This goes against the whole reason I started drawing regularly in the first place - to enjoy the process rather than worry about the outcome.

Over the course of a few days, I made a drawing and spent ages trying to get the proportions just right, sketching it all out very carefully in pencil before slowly tracing over the lines in ink. This helped me feel more in control of the outcome so it wouldn't 'go wrong' but the end result was a drawing that looked really stiff and a kind of boring.

I sat with this anxious feeling for a while longer and sank into watching videos of other artists creating freely, embracing the messy, wonkiness in their work. And then had an idea.

Creating a messy, playfully sketchbook

I was worried about making a bad drawing or painting or somehow spoiling my lovely sketchbooks. But I had another sketchbook I'd only ever painted in once and didn't enjoy using it much. So I thought I could use that (5th) sketchbook to make messy marks on the page. I'd use whatever paints were still on my palette and might otherwise go to waste.

So, grabbing a big brush, I started painting big yellow circles (a shape that, interestingly, keeps cropping up). On another page, I layered different colours on top of one another just to see what would happen. It didn't matter because no one needed to see this. And, actually, I could tell myself I was doing a good thing by using the gouache that would have otherwise sat dried on my palette before being scraped away to make room for more blobs of paint.

This (slightly bigger) sketchbook that I didn't really like was getting a new lease of life and I was splashing paint around. Nothing I've painted will become anything else and most of the pages probably won't even be seen by very many people, but it feels like a really good space to relax and explore.

Rediscovering the joy in creativity

And the best part is, that this more relaxed way of creating has spread across to my regular sketchbook practice now. I'm making paintings and drawings of whatever I feel like making.

Sometimes I work slowly over a number of days to allow layers of paint to dry. Sometimes, I use watercolours and see what textures I can encourage on the page. Sometimes I intentionally choose a colour I don’t like just so that it gets used (often to discover that I do like it after all).

Creating in private

Having a handful of sketchbooks means that I can move between them, leaving paint to dry for as long as necessary while I doodle something else in another sketchbook. And I've not shared much of this stuff online (apart from with my Patrons, who have had a peep at a couple of things). Maybe I will at some point but I think I'll wait a while because the feedback (or lack of it) might influence what I do next. Right now I'm playing with no pressure. You might say, I’ve come full circle, thanks to that sketchbook I didn’t like.

I still have ideas for new products and how I'd like my business to grow but I don't think those two sides of my creativity are mutually exclusive. In fact, I think it's likely that they will feed one another, which seems so obvious now I’m writing it down. I'm curious to see what happens anyway.

Do you have a sketchbook habit? Has it changed or does it feed into other areas of your work?