Hey can I look in your sketchbook?

Um...ok, sure

I'm never quite sure how I feel when people ask to look in my sketchbook. While it's nice that they're interested, I feel quite vulnerable, opening myself up for criticism. Like people may not necessarily understand the purpose of it, that the aim isn't for it to be a book of finished art work. I sketch to improve my skills, exercise the muscles involved, to further train my brain to draw what I actually see (I'll try to explain this further in a moment).

I sketch because one day I want to be good at painting, portrait painting, so being able to achieve a resemblance is important. I sketch to become familiar with a subject, how much more difficult would it be to paint something that you're not sure what it actually looks like? I'm just going to avoid the whole mine field of realism vs abstract for this post.

I also use sketchbooks to make quick line drawings and notations about paintings or objects I see that I want to learn or remember something from. Years later seeing one of these simple line drawings and notes I can picture the image exactly and recall the thing I wanted to store away for later. It works better than a photo, as I recall my interpretation of it.

Ultimately, I sketch because I enjoy it!

(pst bored already, feel free to browse the pics and jump to the end)

Everybody's a critic

Of course it's an exciting bonus to be really happy with a sketch, but fearing others looking at the book in future, can put a crippling restriction on being open in my drawing. Rather than freely drawing or experimenting without concern for the outcome, I can become focused on how bad something might look because others are going to see it.

I have a hard time taking praise, I am the worst recipient of compliments ever, and feel completely uncomfortable trying to give them - however genuinely I mean it. Seriously it makes my skin crawl, and I must come across as ungrateful, rude and or conceited! And if I'm bad at taking praise, criticism will either crush me or turn me into a raging fury (usually after the critic's gone and I've limped home like a wet rag).

I'm often amazed how forward people will be in pointing at a drawing and saying 'ooh the perspective's all wrong there', or '*laughs* wow, what is that supposed to be'. I'm never quite sure how to respond to those comments, other than feeling slapped in the face.

There are plenty of bad ones, and trust me, I can see it's bad. Maybe not during the drawing, as I get too involved. But then you step back, and see the horror. Other times it's hard to define whats wrong, looking at the picture backwards in the mirror will make it glaringly obvious.

Just say no

So there's a few issues there for me to work on. One to be less concerned about any ones opinion (and posting my drawings here is part of that). Another is to learn to say no, with a polite explanation that it's private, like asking someone to read their diary. Ideally I suppose to find a comfort zone somewhere in the middle.

Drawing is a learnable skill

Really, everyone can learn to draw, well ok, if you can write you can learn to draw. Even if your handwriting's terrible (have you seen Picasso's handwriting?)

Now to refer back to the comment on brain training - I believe everyone can draw, its not a random or inherited talent, it comes from practise and observation.

To try to keep it to one paragraph; your brain is really efficient, in order to quickly process information it learns to identify objects by some basic concepts. A cup for example is a cylinder with a handle, open on top, closed at the bottom. Ask a young child or an adult who says they can't draw to draw a cup, and that's exactly what they will draw, side view of the handle and top view of the cup all at once. It's called Canonical perspective, we naturally see things from above in our heads. It's along the same lines that AI Robots 'learn', the defining attributes of an item are enough to identify it, specific details are ignored. By the way, it's also the best way to win Pictionary, draw only the elements your brain needs to identify an object, better yet don't play against Design students.

Learning to draw a realistic image of a cup involves understanding concepts of perspective, of shadow and light, of retraining of your brain to not just take the short cut to the wonky circle and handle version but to actually see what is in front of it. Then there is the fine muscle training for your hands to be able to draw what what your seeing, an interesting exercise with this often happens in life drawing warm ups - where you draw looking only at the model, not looking at all at your drawing until you have finished.

When I have trouble accurately drawing an animal, I go and study their skeletal structure. 

You can't hire someone to practice for you

To view someones drawing and say they are 'really lucky' to be able to draw is kind of condescending, I'm exceptionally lucky these days to have the time to draw when I like, but any ability I may have has years of practise and classes behind it. Of course some people may learn it quicker, or seem to find it easy, but isn't that the same with all things in life? If someones handwriting is neater, were they born with it, or have they taken care and attention to achieve that? If someone's a great at a sport, were they born with it or did it really get their interest and they spent many hours practising?

I'm so envious of my husbands singing ability, but I know very well he has spent thousands more hours than me over the years learning to hear and identify music notes, and to replicate that. My singing clearly shows that I on the other hand haven't put a single day's practice in!

Certainly we all inherit (by genes or conditioning) habits, personality traits and interests from our family. In this regard I was lucky, my Dad had an interest in drawing that his working life never allowed him to pursue, and by the time I came along both my parents probably had a little more free time to encourage my creativity. Even if it was by giving me supplies and hours on my own to do it! I guess it was a 'make something or die of boredom' scenario! I also had an exceptional Art Teacher in Highschool who encouraged me to pursue higher education in Design (which incorporated illustration).

Get a day job

There's also an indulgent side to my sketching, I can be at it for hours and while I'm focused on that all the other noise in my head stops, all those constant thoughts of forgotten bills and birthdays, disagreements, and frustrations disappear, and there is a fabulous sense of calm and happiness that I don't really think happens with anything else I do (except painting, that's even more so). With nearly all other activities my brain is firing around in fifteen directions at once, bouncing around with a 30 second edit of a song on a loop!

I think it's a reflection of the value people place on hobbies in general too. In this time of high pressure, he who is busiest must be most important, hobbies are often seen as self indulgent, selfish or a waste of time. Certainly when people ask what do I do with all my free time - any answer I give related to crafting and drawing doesn't seem justifiable to people working long hours.

There was a point here somewhere?

I set out writing this post intending it to be quite short, barely a paragraph! So what am I getting at - if you want to draw, draw (and if you want to knit, knit!). No one else ever has to see it, it doesn't have to be good, there is no right or wrong - but there is peace and calm in the moment. If you're starting from scratch check out short courses or classes, you can get there on your own, but you'll move faster to where your going with education.

If I've rambled on too much, I hope you enjoyed the images anyway, I thought it may be of interest to see some of those other sketchbook pages, where I've recorded notes visually or with text. Sidenote, these are often called Artist Journals.

Now grab a pen and draw a cup - see?

Palmer, S.E., Rosch, E., & Chase, P. (1981). Canonical perspective and the perception of objects.