Sketching Your Life Away
Had a great conversation with a fellow designer and artist who has incredible talent. We were talking about the regular discipline of drawing and how important that is to an artist. One of the things that I have seen recently is how social media is setting expectations for young or new artists. Often there are these artists that are showing flip-thrus of incredible sketchbooks where every single page looks like it could be framed and put in a gallery. This can really intimidate someone, especially if they are new to creating art. The reality is that these artists that are showing such sketchbooks are not actually showing a SKETCHbook. They are showing you a FLEXbook. A sketchbook is a sandbox for an artist to play, to think, to experiment and to capture ideas. They are often messy. Often personal. Often full of seemingly mindless notes.
A sketchbook is a sandbox for an artist to play, to think, to experiment and to capture ideas.
Flexbooks are great and if you see the black and white ink drawings on this site you will see many pages from my own “flexbook” That is the one I keep in my bag when I am at the coffee shop or some place like that and someone wants to see my sketchbook. I do not hand them the one in the little video above, I hand them the Flexbook from my bag. One is for me, one is for the world.
In a Flexbook an artist really plays to their strengths. That is why every page is awesome. It seems as if they never make mistakes, never have bad ideas or never have bad drawing days. The truth is that Flexbook is NOT a place they are growing, experimenting or thinking through a project. That is all found in a SKETCHbook and artists may not show you those.
As an artist think about having two sketchbooks. One for showing off your skills and another for all the thinking, note taking, experimenting and true sketching. Both will serve you in your growth as an artist. A Flexbook will give you the ability to share your skills with others without having to give away all the wonderful secrets of your sketchbook.
