Keepingsketchbooks

2 Keeping sketchbooks

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3 Keeping sketchbooks

Contents

Keeping sketchbooks 4Types of sketchbooks 5Make a visual diary 5Don’t be precious 6Work fast 6Experiment 7Subjects, techniques and materials 7

Techniques 8Contour or outline drawing 8Blind contour drawing 8Continuous line drawing 9

Subject matter 10

Materials 11Materials for ground 11Materials for marks 11

Draw, draw, draw 12Make thumbnail sketches 13Practice 13Collect and glue 13Sketch and go 14Be tidy, be messy 14Muse 14Save old sketchbooks 15Look at other sketchbooks 15

4 Keeping sketchbooks

Keeping sketchbooks

This guide is essential reading for all OCA students. It is critical that you keep on top of your sketchbook work as well as the main body of work. 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.

It 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 visual 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.

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Types of sketchbooksYou 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 diaryThink 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.

Jane Horton

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Don’t be preciousSketchbooks 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 fastSome 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.

Jereme Crow

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ExperimentSketchbooks 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.

Subjects, techniques and materialsGiven the status and significance of the sketchbook, it is not surprising that new students sometimes feel anxious or inhibited when confronted by their first empty sketchbook. The following suggestions for subject matter, techniques and materials are provided to encourage you to explore using your sketchbook by exploring tried-and-tested exercises commonly practiced in many art-schools. The list is not exhaustive, so in keeping with the idea of the sketchbook, aim to build your understanding of these brief introductions. Research the terms and view examples (there are many online, try using Google images). Use your research to inspire and nurture your own experimentation.

Jereme Crow

Jereme Crow

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Techniques

Contour or outline drawingThe simplest form of drawing where you concentrate only on the outside visible edge of an object or the line made by a fold in soft material. Hands make good subjects for this approach to drawing, you can change the pose and redraw. Layer slightly different views, one over another. Try drawing details of objects such as fruit, flowers and fauna. Research keywords “contour drawing”, e.g. Michael Craig-Martin.

Blind contour drawingOutline drawing without looking at the paper. This exercise is designed to improve eye-hand coordination. With practice you’ll be drawing for lengthy periods without looking down at your work. Feel free to move beyond describing only outlines and delight in the distortion and errors which inevitably occur.

Laura Lee Sang

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Continuous line drawingTry one of the two approaches above but without removing the tip of your drawing implement from the paper. Consider the resulting rich cacophony of loose lines and exaggeration, differing qualities of mark etc...

Now research these other techniques and try them in your sketchbook as you work through your course:• Cross contour• Expressive cross contour• Calligraphic or signatory• Implied line drawing• Gestural drawing• Fluid line• Tonal• Tone through hatching, crosshatching, contour hatching, scumbling or scribbling

random hatching, stippling• Draw negative space• Using naturalistic colour

Sarah Pease

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Subject matter

You don’t have to stick to traditional subject matter look at the list below to give you ideas:• Repetitive drawing• Enlarged and reduced drawing• Drawing in public• Drawing a single object• Drawing enclosed spaces• Traditional still life• Drawing contrasting materials and surfaces• Dramatic lighting• Self portrait• Friends and family• Details of facial features• Clothing and textiles

Jackie Gaskell

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Materials

Try the different techniques on the previous page using different materials, use the following list to give you ideas, don’t limit yourself to pencil and paint.

Materials for ground• Coloured wash• Found papers• Preparing a mid toned background• Dirtying the page• Decollage

Materials for marks• Mark-making• Collage• Using transparency and layers• Exploring edges• Oversized brushes• Drawing with collage• Collage with pre-marked or pre-toned paper

Jessica Stroud

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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.

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Make thumbnail sketchesThumbnail 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.

PracticeUse 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 30second rapid sketches.

Collect and glueCollect 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.

Jessica Stroud

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Sketch and goCreate 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 messySome 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.

MuseYou 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.

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Save old sketchbooksSketchbooks 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

Look at other sketchbooksGet 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 oca.ac.uk 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.