Artist’s sketchbooksMy first artist I looked into was Grayson Perry’s sketchbook. I was intrigued to find out about Grayson Perry as I didn’t know that much about him. I love his sense of fun and colour in his sketchbooks, they are quite rough and just normal!

This is a fun page of Grayson’s drawing some images’ of himself and designing some outfits in different colours and shapes. Here it looks like he has used a black fine liner pen then coloured in with felt tips or bullet pens. They are rough sketches but they have lots of details in the ruffles, brocades and edges.

Here we can see Grayson’s sense of fun and love of the unusual, some fantasy figures and themes and a nice use of colour. Again It looks like a black fine liner has been used as the initial sketches, the felt tips to colour in, they could be watercolour pens or brush pens?

Grayson has added small notes and words here and done some small thumb nails. He has split the page up into boxes and used the page in different ways and angels.

I use black fine liner in my sketchbooks sometimes, I find you can achieve a better line with them, whereas as pencils can sometimes be to soft.

This drawing in his sketchbook is a design of his house; I did watch a programme once on how he designed his own house and how unusual it was. Grayson has used pen here to draw the design, he has done some smaller sketches too, added some notes and details as well. This is roughly coloured in, but the actual sketch is fairly good, it is in proportion and looks good.

I think this must be a quick loose drawing of the inside of one of the rooms in the house. It’s a very quick sketch, detailed but rough and fairly naive. It looks like it’s drawn in part pencil

and part pen, then roughly coloured in maybe using crayons on something quick he had to hand. You can feel the quickness in the style and strokes of the pens.

When I draw quickly my pictures look naive and child like, I think because you are drawing so quick your style reverts back to basic, just to get the idea down.

Grayson clearly does have mistakes in his sketchbooks and they are very rough and the content is just things he’s working on or designing or everyday things or things he likes, it very normal and varied.

This page is a mixture of things, politics, and posters or a book maybe, or just ways he sees the world? Small sketches of characters, notes and words and things he wants to express.

This is a good idea of just drawing what you feel or something you have an opinion on?!

These pages are more detailed and coloured, some experiments with texture it says and some design for Sunderland a visual look in his way. Some thumb nails on different things, but a good idea of just using the pages for a range of projects.

Again some political views or how he sees things in a political way, with ‘The Beast’ a very detailed and amazing sketch.

Also a photo shoots drawing of some characters on the top right and some thumbnails lower of some designs and pots.

Here are those pots in more detail and colour, with some notes either side on some changes and annotations. Again a very detailed sketch for both designs.

And some more designs for a pot or vase and an interesting scene or sketch all very detailed and coloured brilliantly.

I found Grayson Perry’s sketchbook wonderfully vibrant, colourful and detailed, but also just normal, rushed and sketchy. A great contrast of how to use your books. A lot of his work is just his view on how he sees things, or his feelings towards things. I found it very interesting and I will take away more confidence to just be yourself in your sketchbook.

Leonardo de VinciI’m not a huge fan of Leonardo de Vinci’s classic sketchbooks as I’m not interested in the subjects he draws, but I did fins after some research that he did also sketch and draw botanicals and animals, which I am interested in and find fascinating.

This is one of De Vinci’s scientific studies of nature, I love the way he has created movement with the way he has drawn the grass and leaves of the plant. It looks like he has used a natural graphite pencil here but in actual fact it is red chalk!

Here is another study of oak leaves and acorns; it was historical work he created of the oak tree, leaves and fruit, again using red chalk. I like the way he has used small mark making gestures on the acorns and leaves to give a roundness and texture.

This one is a study of cats and other animals, here de Vinci studies different angles and poses that the cats and animals make. Again he uses very small mark making line strokes to create the fur texture on these animals. Here it is a good use of his sketchbook, by making small studies of animals to watch the way they move and capture this. These small studies can help with reference in the future and help create bigger drawings or studies if needed.

Here we have studies of some rushes in flower, again an historical piece of sketching by de Vinci. This is an aquatic plant, with hollow stems and small flowers, the stems are used for making baskets and mats. Here de Vinci has used his red chalk again but this time on pink paper.

Great small marks again used for the flower heads and some more mark making for the leaves and rushes, the textures he creates are amazing.

Beatrix potterMy third sketchbooks I looked at was Beatrix Potter’s, I have always liked Potters illustrations and was bought up on her books, so I found this research really interesting.

I found some botanical studies that she drew of some mushrooms, I love the detail and the exacting study she has produced, and it’s very much like botanical and scientific illustration. I have found out whilst doing this research that Potter had a keen interest in Mycology and began producing beautiful drawings of fungi and collecting mushroom specimens herself. Potter was a regular visitor to the Natural History Museum in London, where she loved to stud the displays. Potter learnt how to use her watercolours to achieve the detail required to be a scientific illustrator.

This next illustration was from observation of a Ewe and a lamb meeting a duckling, it is created by pencil and is fairly simple in the lines she has used to outline the shapes of the animals, I image this was a quick sketch that was done rapidly.

Another illustration done from observation, this one was for a scene in one of her books, its created using ink pen and again is just a rough quick sketch. The places Potter used to visit was what she drew, so this was part of a garden, field or outside area that she had visited and wanted to capture in her sketchbook.

Studies of Miss Tiggy-winkle, pencil drawings to capture the character and form of a little hedgehog. Different facial features and ways of looking, how they naturally moved all captured in her sketchbook. These are more detailed illustrations, so took longer and are more ‘studies’ than rapid drawings.

Again the same sort of illustrations except it’s a study of some frogs and this time done in ink pen, these look more rapid and quick and the lines are more simple and less detailed.

This one is of observations and animals she had met on her travels, she captured these little animal characters to add into her letter to a friend or loved one.

This one looks like an illustration for a book that Potter was working on; the detail is more intricate and detailed and shows maybe the page spread that would be put into the book. A rough copy but one that would become part of the book at a later date.

Some great ideas to capture in my sketchbook of observations and things to draw on your travels, how to rapidly sketch and use simple lines and shapes just for the outlines.

Sara Boccaccini (Boccaccini Meadows)

I love Sara’s easy style with her sketchbooks and her use of colour; I find them inspiring and full of texture and small intricacies.

Sara is inspired by nature and the countryside and going on walks and all different kind of landscapes and countries.

I love how she uses coloured pens to create botanical and organic shapes, using colour, but mainly shades of green.

Sara uses some great shapes in her work, lots of little dots, lines, circles and mark making. The pages are like little gardens in one, so pretty and cute, Sara uses a lot of her work to create surface pattern designs, and a lot for children’s outfits and interiors, you can see why.

Here Sara does a lot of washes, and then uses marks to make patterns in the lines, so simple yet effective, and something that still creates a feeling, this one to me feels calm and gentle.

Sara takes a lot of inspiration from nature and the outdoors, here she has made some shapes / circles and used mark making in them that can represent many things like rocks, water, droplets, texture on a tree, leaves. I love the colours she used here and the watercolour paint was used wet on wet, so you get that bleed texture, which I love.

The next few sketchbooks are more filled with little villages and buildings, which is charming.

Her you can see she sets out the colours she uses above the sketch, this is a good idea to start with or to complete at the end, it can help with coordinateness or other sketches to compliment.

Sara’s style is quite naive, but I think this works well with what her work is used for, and it is a style that is unique to her and her work is easily recognisable because of this. I like this style anyway, and would be happy to have one of her prints in my living room, as well as outfits for children, it makes it all the more charming.

Sara uses her sketchbooks well, it looks like she uses small books quite a lot, especially texture and colours and mark making. I like that she uses the entire page, and I would imagine fills the whole book up, with amazing designs.

Her more considered work is sketched in a bigger sketchbook; it looks like a landscape style maybe A5 or A4.

Some great ideas of how to use the sketchbooks when you are out and about, thinking sketchbooks should be used just to record identifiable sketches, is wrong and something I have realised doesn’t have to be, using just textures, colours or mark making is just as important.