For this exercise I was asked to watch a video of tutor Emma Powell, in which she takes the viewer on a tour through her sketchbook. The video can be found here.
I took some notes whilst watching and considered my thoughts in relation to how she uses her sketchbook, and how this might change my perception of my own sketchbooking process. My immediate thought was that her sketchbook is very large, both in page dimension and in how many pages it contains. It’s much bigger than what I typically feel comfortable working in. I prefer to work in smaller sketchbooks, and having less pages to work on makes me feel less overwhelmed about the idea of ‘completing’ a sketchbook. Later on, though, Emma reveals that her sketchbook is built so that it can have pages added when needed, so I guess it doesn’t need to be full!
It was interesting to see that she takes a lot of photos of things and sticks them in her sketchbook. I relate to this, but I don’t currently stick them in with my sketches. Her work is also consolidated from everywhere in one place. All of the random bits of paper or pieces completed in workshops have been added. I don’t know if I would do this myself. I like to have everything spread out in a visually accessible way. If I’m referencing something, I think I’d rather it wasn’t in my sketchbook. It is nice, though, that she was able to say ‘look, these are all related things from one project, and they’re all together in one sketchbook’.
Alongside being literally large, I found that all of the stuck-in bits and pieces, empty space, pages upon pages of photographs, etc, took up way too much space. I much prefer to have things more concise and organised. I think that’s to do with how my brain works more than anything, I’m a very structured thinker and I always seek order. I would still take the hundreds of photographs, or do the twenty colour experiments, but I think I’d seek to do it in such a way that I conserve paper. At the time I noted that this might be to do with the fact I grew up in poverty, and art resources were very precious.
I really enjoyed watching this video. I love seeing other people’s sketchbooks and how they work in them. Even if I wouldn’t do the same in mine, it inspires me to explore new things and to question how I do currently work. I definitely like the idea of making my own sketchbooks, and I’d be interested in creating almost a binder of my work similar to how Emma has done.
Learning Log 