Are Sketchbooks Important?

I Made some comments while discussing the loss of my sketch bag and replacement of it. While these were casual comments that weren’t integral to the blog posts, they stirred some responses. I think it’s fair to say that my comments can be put into two piles and summarized thusly:

1) I don’t value my sketchbooks and, in fact, find them something of a nuisance as they accumulate.
2) More and more I’m abandoning sketchbooks in favor of single sheets.

I received several emails about these comments. Some defended the use of sketchbooks and one (there’s always one) wanted to convince me that I shouldn’t “put myself down” by saying my sketchbooks don’t matter. And then Susan King wrote this in the public comments:

“I thought I was the only one who didn’t look at my old sketchbooks. I recently filled two banker’s boxes and put them in the basement because I ran out of shelf space. (I did keep out the ones that have course material in them as I sometimes do go back and look at those.) I was tempted to throw away rather than store the old ones. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this whole subject sometime!”

It was like looking in a mirror. These comments made me think that maybe there was something to say here.

Those of us who joined the urban sketching movement have been taught that one does urban sketching in a sketchbook, and we hear it over and over and over and over again. If you look around, however, you see any number of people at USK events working on single sheets. I’ll talk about that later but today I want to respond to Susan’s curiosity.

When I started sketching I couldn’t draw anything and my attempts were all done on photocopy paper. I remember drawing, or trying to draw, cubes…lots of cubes. Eventually though, after proper indoctrination into USK, I bought a sketchbook, a little A6 book that was small enough to hide as I would go out to draw. And I started filling sketchbooks…lots of sketchbooks. Above is a photo of the only pile still in my office. Like Susan, I’ve got a couple boxes of the darn things in the basement, filled when I needed shelf space. The portfolios in the lower left of that photo are the only things that have moved on those shelves in a decade. They are how I store my single sheet sketches.

Sketchbooks are great if you want to create sketchbooks, those “let me show you the fine art I’ve produced” books that many enjoy. Those wanting to discuss and implement “page layouts” like sketchbooks. Some use sketchbooks as a way of keeping score (look at my shelf of sketchbooks) and all of these reasons are good reasons for sketching in sketchbooks.

But I’ve never been either of those kind of sketchbookers. For me a sketchbook has always been a tool, a place to sketch. I’ve never been shy about saying “I don’t know if I’m an artist. I just draw stuff.” And when I’m done drawing something, I turn the page and don’t look back. I don’t create sketchbooks, I create sketches.

It’s not everyone’s style but even USK tells us that this is “all about the process, not the product.” It certainly is for me. Am I proud that I can now draw something? You bet. A guy who hits a home run is proud too, but he doesn’t spend his nights watching a video of it. He’s too busy trying to hit another one.

So, no big deal here, but Susan and I, and probably some other folks look at a decade’s worth of sketchbooks as something in the way, not something precious. But I’ll finish this by pointing out that both Susan and I haven’t thrown our sketchbooks away. I wish I could say why that is since I never look at them but there you have it. I must see some value in keeping sketches. Sketchbooks aren’t the only way, however.

Just so nobody gets the wrong idea (someone surely will), I’m not dumping on the use of sketchbooks by anyone or for any reason. For me, however, they are getting less and less use. I’ll talk about that next time.

I’m Now Prepared For The Spring Sketching Offensive

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. It seems like the media have gotten attached to “spring offensive” when talking about Ukraine and I tire of the media’s innane use and reuse of catch phrases. And don’t get me started on the militarization of North America rhetoric. Seems we can’t even speak of sports without it. But I have “rearmed” and I’m ready to “battle” the plein air with my new “arsenal,” none of which were supplied by NATO 🙂 Some were purchased locally while other pieces had to be sourced abroad.

A few blog posts ago I talked about losing my sketching bag and I showed you the replacement. In preparing this post I realized that I didn’t talk much about this photo.

What I should have mentioned was that THIS was the real pain of losing that bag. The bag itself was over a decade old and while it was an old friend, it wasn’t much of a loss. The value of the sketchbooks, to me, was not great as they just end up on a shelf with the other umty-tendy-teen sketchbooks and I never look at. But the photo above was of the paint kit lost with that bag. By far, it was the hardest, and most expensive thing to replace.

But I have reconstituded that kit, with some differences. Heck, I was even able to find a Rosemary Co. sticker for the palette box, though this one is square and not round like the old one. I replaced my squirrel mop (I really don’t like squirrel hair brushes) with a Princeton synthetic cat-tongue brush but the important thing(s) here are the two sable travel brushes (#6 & #10) which are my primary brushes. I’m still mostly an idiot when it comes to using brushes and watercolor but those are my favorites.

I’m a fan of metal paint boxes cuz magnets can attach them to stuff, so the first order of business was to find a replacement. I finally did but when it arrived I realized that it was just a wee bit smaller than the old one I had and that wee bit was just enough to prevent the 4×6 (24) half pan palette of my old one. No big deal as I didn’t use half the colors anyway but it did require that I rethink a bit. I’m pretty happy with the result and I can add a couple more colors. I think I’m going to leave those slots empty, though, so I’ve got place for trial colors. I’ll show it to you just cuz it will never be this clean again (grin).

Oh, I know that many of you are way past “spring” and probably wonder why I’d talk of spring being a future event, but we had a frost advisory last night. It is getting warmer, though. Slowly.

My Daily Carry Bag

Thanks to everyone who commented on the new backpack I bought to replace the bag that I lost. I mentioned that this is for when I go on actual sketching adventures rather than a trip to the grocery store, doctor, or to have coffee with a friend.

Some were surprised by the size of it and I confess that my “serious” bag needs to be ample because it might be carrying a tripod, stool and have to handle gouache or oils in addition to my typical sketching needs.

It was suggested that I do a post on my daily carry bag. Because my loss included the contents of the bag, I’m struggling to fill both bags adequately/properly. Add this to my generally fickle nature regarding what I carry and the best I can do is throw out on the table its current contents at this point, but I can assure you that it will be different within a week. For instance, I don’t have a kneaded eraser (a must) in my daily carry bag because l lost my favorite little metal container where I carry carried it. This is why I didn’t talk in detail about my new bag contents as they are changing by the minute (grin). Anyways, here goes…

The main bag: This bag is really the baby version of my old main bag. They came in several sizes and I bought two of them.

Bag with flap open: With the flap open this is the view. As you can see, all my pointy devices are accessible. You can also see that these aren’t the same pointy devices as you see in the contents photo. Photos taken at different times and some of the stuff was on my desk when this photo was taken.

Top View: I’ve tried to open all the compartments so you can peak inside. There’s a pocket on the back of the bag that you can see but I stuff things like a plastic bag and paper towels in it.

Bag Contents: Treating this as two rows (LtoR), Uniball Vision – micro, Pentel Kerry 05 mech. pencil, Ticonderoga #2 pencil, Lamy Safari (F), Kaweco Lilliput (F), waterbrush, #10 pointed round travel brush, spritz bottle. 2nd row – Nalgen bottle for water, Portable Painter Micro, Kleenex.

A couple things to note that underscores the serendipity nature of these contents. That Lamy Safari isn’t something I carry. I wanted to do something with Lex Gray and so I filled it and it found its way into the bag. The sketchbooks I show in the second graphic aren’t permanent fixtures. I’ll always have a 3×5 scribbler and I keep meaning to fill the tiny sketchbook, but the other one will probably be jettisoned soon. I’m using sketchbooks less and less these days (see below).

My Paper Case and Drawing Board: I’ve played mental ping-pong over the sketchbooks vs single sheet approach to drawing, art or whatever you want to call it and single sheets are winning the day for me. The reason is pretty simple. Sometimes I like pen and ink. Sometimes I’ll draw with pencil. At other times I want to do watercolor, qouache, etc. Being able to choose a paper on a per sketch basis is wonderful. Being able to choose the color and format of paper on a per sketch basis is, well…let’s just say it’s a bonus.

And so, in both of my bags I carry a “paper case” which is nothing more than a couple pieces of pieces of Coroplast taped together to form a book. Inside I can put any quality, size, or color paper. I can select one and clip it to the exterior and the book becomes a backing board for drawing. The biggest that will fit in my small bag is 8″ tall. A bonus of this approach is that it’s a LOT lighter than carrying a couple sketchbooks all the time.

** Note that the bulldog clip shown here is really horrible. I lost a bunch of clips with my lost bag and need to get some replacements.

So, there you have it – my daily carry bag. I try to keep it light and not carrying sketchbooks really helps with that. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Inspiration Comes To Town

It’s been fairly obvious from my lack of posting and my comments that I’ve been lacking inspiration. That it’s still too cold to sketch outdoors hasn’t helped but the problem has been more basic than that.

So how can it be that I woke up this morning chomping at the bit to do material prep and to draw? It came from this past weekend when Laurel and Marc Holmes stopped to visit. Two of the best people I know, we had a great time, mostly while sitting and talking.

The idea was to sketch together and we did that, but not much. We bumped into two problems. The first was cold and windy weather that made sketching outdoors almost painful. From the looks of things, outdoor sketching is a couple weeks away for me.

The other problem was the Museum of Civilization here in Quebec City. Pre-pandemic this was my go to place to sketch when weather was bad because it was always full of stuff to sketch. I hadn’t been there since 2019 but it seemed like a good solution to our dilemma. I spent a bunch of money to renew my membership and Marc and Laurel spent a lot of money on tickets. We all wasted it.

You know those movies where someone returns to a place of fond memories only to find it devastated or inhabited by zombies? That was how I felt. The bedrock of this museum has always been two large permanent exhibits and four large exposition halls where expositions came and went, always providing good stuff to draw. What we faced were three of those halls permanently empty and one of the permanent exhibits gutted and closed off. What remained was horrible. The “big” exhibit was a historical presentation of a famous Quebec politician but it was just a bunch of large photos of him and a few trinkets from his life. There was very little to draw. And so I got to enjoy Laurel and Marc while sitting in restaurants or the drawing room of their B&B. And while I’m sure they were disappointed, I thoroughly enjoyed their presence and our discussions.

Marc showed me a bunch of 5×5 direct watercolors he’d done during the excursion they were returning from and they really excited me. I couldn’t think of much else. I’ve got to learn this approach to “sketching” (when Marc does it the results need to be framed and hung on a wall) and I’ve commited to doing his annual 30 paintings in 30 days event that starts in June. Hopefully I can figure out how to do it before then.

Here are a couple sketches that I did in our empty museum.

Sketching In My Front Yard

This summer I’ve fallen in love with sketching Chantal’s flowers.  Why?  Cuz they’re beautiful, plentiful, and available.  But another reason is that they really help me hone the connection between my visual and motor cortex.  Some call this hand-eye coordination but there are no hands or eyes being trained here.  It’s all hind brain doing the work and the trick is to get this to happen without interference from the forebrain, be it left or right forebrain.  When artists say “get the brain out of the way,” this is what they mean whether they realize it or not.

Anyway, I spent a bunch of time “in the zone” drawing these black-eyed susans, locating them relative to one another.  During most of it I was “unavailable” to anyone walking by.  In the end I was both exhausted and exhilarated.  I think I got most of it right.  The leaves are not accurate.  I used lines representing some leaves to locate the flowers but otherwise the leaves were a by guess and by golly venture.  Hope you like it.