Keeping sketchbooks

Open College of the Arts

Student Support

Sketchbook images by OCA students

Keeping sketchbooks This guide is essential reading for all OCA students.

Sketchbook and learning log work constitute 20% of your marks for assessed work

so it is critical that you keep these elements of your study going, as well as the

main body of work coming out of your course. Even if you don’t want to be assessed

formally, your tutor will want to see how you are developing and what your thought

process is by looking at the reflections you have logged and at your sketchbook work.

Keeping sketchbooksIt is impossible to over-emphasise the importance of using a sketchbooks as part of

your OCA learning experience. Sketchbooks will help develop your drawing skill, and

are crucial to your development as an artist. Sketchbooks are for recording objects,

places, events and everyday life and, in addition to developing your drawing skill,

working in them will develop your visial awareness and imagination. Sketchbooks

can play a variety of different roles: they can be visual diaries, reference points, used

to record travel, or be used for imaginative drawing and doodles, or all of the above.

Types of sketchbooks

You should have some small

sketchbooks, A6 or A5 or

little square books. This is

so that you can always have

one in your pocket or your

bag. A smaller book filled

with ideas and observations

is more interesting than

a larger one with blank

spaces. But do have some bigger sketchbooks: A4 sketchbooks and larger. You’ll

find you use these in a different way to the smaller ones. Hardback books are strong

enough to take every day use and help contain all the bits and pieces you may

put into them. Use a rubber band to keep it together as your sketchbook begins to

expand.

Make a visual diary

Think of your sketchbooks as ‘visual diaries’ and as part of a wider activity of collecting

and exploration. Try to fill at least a page a day, or at least get into the habit of regular

drawing, and always carry a sketchbook with you. Sketchbooks should show what you

have seen that has interested and intrigued you – this could include photographs,

textiles, and magazine and newspaper articles. Some sketchbook studies will be the

starting points for your work, and resources for future reference. Make written notes

in sketchbooks, perhaps, for example, a note about texture, scale, colour, method or

technique.

Don’t be precious

Sketchbooks should be essentially true visual records made up as you go along, not

compiled by sticking ‘good’ drawings in them in an effort to create a good impression.

A sketchbook will inevitably have poor drawings and paintings as well as good ones

because not everything you decide to draw will turn out to be as good an idea as

you first thought. Don’t tear out pages if something goes wrong. You should feel

unencumbered by the need to be accurate. When you are faced with a brand new

sketchbook, don’t freeze on the first page. It doesn’t have to be clean, neat and tidy.

Work fast

Some studies in your sketchbook may have taken you several hours but others perhaps

only a few seconds. Make quick drawings and colour studies because working at

speed compels you to decide, in an instant, what is important about the subject.

Your individuality will sometimes be revealed more clearly when you are working

spontaneously in this way.

Experiment

Sketchbooks also provide an opportunity to experiment with different methods of

working. Don’t only use pencils and paints but also other drawing materials you

have. Try different colour combinations, and the effect of overlays and collage. Using

a different medium makes you look at a subject in a new way. Stick in a photograph

or photocopy or just a fragment of another image that is directly related to research

you are doing. This can trigger new ideas.

Draw, draw, draw Draw or paint anything you see: trees, flowers, a bicycle, a sheep, a dustbin, a cup

and saucer, the texture of old stonework, a group of figures at a bus stop, waves

breaking on a beach, shadow patterns in a sun-lit room.

• Draw something for a second or third time, perhaps in a different medium.

• Draw the same objects or figure from a different viewpoint. Draw unusual views.

• Draw the mundane: your favourite drink, your bed, your toothbrush.

• Draw people. Anyone is fair game. Draw your friends, your family, your pets.

Don’t worry if they move, you’ll get better at drawing them the more you practice.

• Vary the size of your sketchbook work, do magnified views of things.

• Sketch details that catch your eye.

• Draw other people’s work. Go to an art gallery and sketch a picture you find

interesting. Note the colours, the composition, the style and the techniques.

• Draw a day in your life, turn it into a cartoon in windows.

• Planning the design and composition for a project in your sketchbook.

• Draw your sense of excitement, your sad feelings.

• Draw your dreams, your nightmares.

• Capture a thought or an image from your memory before it is lost.

• Make a doodle of a flower, a heart, or a squiggle.

• Use watercolours to add some colour to the stark white pages for variety. Add

colour to some drawings later on.

• Drag a light layer of acrylic paint across the page before or after drawing on it.

• Glue a background of sheet music, wrapping paper, tissue paper, sweet wrapper

or text to the page.

• Look up, look round, stay where you are, just draw!

Draw anything and everything. The more you draw the better you will be.

Make thumbnail sketches

Thumbnail sketches are quick, abbreviated drawings in any medium. It’s helpful

to draw up some boxes in your sketchbook to prepare for thumbnail work, just a

few centimetres square. Thumbnails are good memory aids and planning tools too,

excellent for gallery visits to remember key aspects of an artwork. You can also plan

compositions by trying out different versions in quick thumbnails. Use thumbnails

to plan colour schemes, just mark different combinations in each box. Don’t forget

that it is often useful to make notes alongside thumbnail sketches to help illuminate

them, especially when you look back at the work a few months later.

Practice

Use your sketchbook to try out different drawing techniques. Do negative space

exercises in your sketchbook, do a ‘blind’ contour drawing (drawing your hand

(for example) from memory without lifting your pencil from the paper). Do some

30 second rapid sketches.

Collect and glue

Collect pictures and drawings from magazines and marketing materials that inspire

you. Photocopy photographs and drawings in library books or periodicals. Paste these

into your sketchbook. Keep things that remind you of places, people, atmospheres and

feelings: a piece of fabric, a leaf, a bus ticket, a bill. Secure them in your sketchbook

along with small sketches and notes.

Sketch and go

Create a bag full of sketching gear that is always ready for you to take out, on

the spur of the moment. Keep it small, with just the essentials in it, but make sure

you include: a sketchbook, a rubber, a drawing pen, a couple of soft pencils and a

sharpener. Add a few colouring tools if you like.

Be tidy, be messy

Some people keep very organised sketchbooks, documenting their ideas and sketches

neatly. Others are just a jumble of ideas and notes. No approach is right or wrong,

it’s just personal.

Muse

You should carry your sketchbook around with you all the time, it is your home

for personal musings. It is a refuge to draw meditatively with or without particular

purpose. It is a place for spontaneity as well as for thoughts and work that take some

considerable time.

Save old sketchbooks

Sketchbooks can jog your creativity years later and provide a record of your artistic

development. Record your thoughts about art, your work and the work of others.

Look back at old sketchbooks to spark memories, new ways of working and to see

how you have developed. Set aside time each week to examine your sketchbook.

Play with variations of things you’ve drawn or pictures you’ve pasted in from other

sources.

Look at other sketchbooks

Get glimpses of other artists’ sketchbooks to get an idea of their private thoughts,

their working methods and creative processes. Get inspired by other sketchbooks.

• Leonardo da Vinci’s famous sketchbooks are filled with drawings, diagrams and

written notes of things he saw and ideas he had.

• Picasso produced 178 sketchbooks in his lifetime. He used his sketchbooks to

explore themes and make compositional studies.

• Henry Moore filled one of his sketchbooks with drawings of sheep that wandered

in the field just outside his studio.

A person’s first sketch or drawing often outshines attempts to refine it. Some of

your best work will be in your sketchbook.

OCA’s website www.oca-uk.com is your first stop for information about courses, plus

access to help, support, advice and tips from tutors and other learners.

Register on the website, upload a picture if you like, and get chatting to other

students via the forum.

Find out about exhibitions and books recommended by fellow students, discuss

the state of contemporary art or the music industry, share tips on techniques and

processes, and share your thoughts on studying from home.

Open College of the Arts Michael Young Arts Centre

Redbrook Business Park

Wilthorpe Road

Barnsley S75 1JN

enquiries@oca-uk.com

0800 731 2116

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