Starting a New Sketchbook
I find it often helps to start off with a browse through your last sketchbook. Make it a kind of continuity rather than seeing it as a separate entity. You can also start off by defacing the book a bit - stain it with coffee, do some collage. Let the kids scribble in the front of it. Relax and enjoy it.
If you really do want to create a 'perfect' sketchbook, consider using loose paper or a sketch pad, and leaving a couple of inches clear to allow for binding, and having the book bound after you've done the drawings. That way you can leave anything out or add it in, so you can be creative and not have to worry about getting a whole book perfect.
More on Sketchbooking:
Favorite Sketchbooks
How to Keep a Sketchbook
Sketchbook Drawing Ideas
Comments
Helen,
– “consider using loose paper or a sketch pad, and leaving a couple of inches clear to allow for binding” –
I love this great idea, I will pass it on to my students en 2007.
Thank you for everything.
Have the greatest year in 2007.
Gerald
I always leave the first page of a sketchbook blank so if I want to put a special image on the first page, I can do that later. I did get a new sketchpad for Christmas. (I bought it, lol) I keep seperate sketchbooks for different subjects. Although if I am traveling, I break the rules and draw whatever I feel like in the sketchbook I take with me.
Hi Gerald! I remember seeing a sketchbook that someone had bound, a collection of watercolour paintings, and it really looked lovely – and seemed sturdier and safer than a loose folio. I wish I could do that with the pages I’ve salvaged out of old sketchbooks, but there is never enough margin.
Kelly, maybe you need a Travel sketchbook! I’m never that organized with mine – they tend to end up full of all sorts of stuff. My puppy chewed the spine of a brand-new Hahnemuhle sketchbook … I think I might try ‘antiqueing’ the cover, since it is no longer all crisp and perfect.