Sketchbook Pages 10 January 2011

 A selection of pages from my sketchbook over the last few weeks.

You can see earlier sketchbook pages here and here and here.

Sketchbook Pages 29 November 2010

Here are the latest pages from my sketchbook.  You can see previous pages here and here.

Sketchbook Pages 22 November 2010

A Studio in My Pocket

Well, not really in my pocket ...

We went camping a couple of weeks ago, I took some great photos, and I took along a tiny, portable studio. Enough stuff to paint or draw on the run.

I like my travelling 'studio' to be compact and organised, so I packed my equipment into a tiny lunch box.

Here you can see the lunch box, pens, watercolour pencils and my paint box. There are two paintbrushes in the paintbox. There is my sketchbook, and two beautiful leaves that I found. I love to paint leaves. Oh, and that is a mini water container, in the front.

Look how everything packs neatly into the little lunch box, and on the right, I have even  squashed in my wallet and cell phone - nifty!


I packed this little back full of stones and leaves to bring home. It would have been nice to have a few zip-lock bags.


I have been quite extravagant with this travelling studio, I have packed a large set of paints and 24 coloured pencils, but there are plenty of compact painting materials suitable for travelling (or to keep in your hand bag or glove compartment.)


Take a look at this great  video on the Pocket box by Guerilla Painter. I'd love to have one of those!

And here is  the Winsor and Newton Artists' Watercolour pocket plus traveller. Very swish!

I have a new sketchbook, a birthday present from good-painting-friend-Judy, and it is an unusual format. It does not fit into my lunch box, so I have bought a 'sketchbag' from a second-hand shop to hold all my supplies. I have done a drawing of it in my new sketchbook:

I can now grab my sketchbag and run - oh - better remember to put in some zip-lock bags!

Do you have a studio in your pocket?

Sketchbook Pages 15 November 2010

I started a new sketchbook this week end, with the intention to use it often and post the pages here for you to see. It's part of my new philosophy - to make what art I can - during this busy stage of my family life.

I love sketchbooks (and notebooks and journals!) I could look at them all day! 

If you want to look all day, Here is a link to some images of sketchbooks. If you want to look AND read all day (and a bit longer) this link will take you a great sketchbook guide. I love the internet!

Are you keeping a sketchbook??

Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings - Day 3

This is the third day in the series on ideas, scratching around in our lives to find those sparks that get us working.
 
On Day 1, we considered our own art work and our sketchbooks in particular, as a possible source of ideas.
On Day 2, we looked at how the work of other artists can help us generate ideas for our own work.

Each of us has a unique approach to finding ideas and turning those ideas into paintings, drawings, sculptures or other creative works. There is no magic formula, ideas come from everywhere. As creative people, we need to be ready to jot down any new idea that comes to us by having a notebook or sketchbook on hand. 

Be intuitive – when something feels right – when it feels like a good idea – it probably is. Make a note, take a photo, do a quick thumbnail - don't let it go.

Ideas come from the world around us

There are as many ideas as there are things to look at. Artists are inspired by things that they see in the world around them.

Nature: landscapes, plants, stones, bones, seeds, shells, seascapes.
Countless artists look to nature for ideas like Constable, Turner, and Monet.

People: faces, groups, relationships, old people, children. Chuck Close, Lucien Freud, Ron Meurck, Carravagio,  Rubens, Adolphe-William Bouguereau, Henry Moore all have people as their subject matter.

Animals: ideas for paintings can come from wild animals, pets, farm animals, insects, fish, etc.
The Lascaux Cave paintings, Rosa Bonheur and George Stubbs are examples.

Objects: still life groupings, fruit, food, bottles, cups, cakes, flowers. Wayne Thiebaud, Cezanne, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Audrey Flack, are artists who have grouped objects to paint.

Man-made objects: buildings, interiors, mechanical objects, gadgets, clothes, jewellery, cars and vehicles Richard Estes, Claes Oldenburg, are examples.

Ideas come from our interior world


Our thoughts, feelings and emotions, intellectual ideas, imagination and sometimes moods are a rich source of ideas and subject matter.

Artist who look inside of themselves for ideas, include Heironymus Bosch, Paul Klee, the Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, Surrealists like Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, (who described his paintings as “hand painted dream photographs”), William Blake, Arthur Boyd, Wassily Kandinsky, to name just a few.

Ideas are everywhere - cultivate an open mind alert to the possibility of ideas in all environments and situations. 

4 Foolproof ways to capture that idea

1. Make a note.  Write down everything that comes to you as you think of it.  Be as detailed as the situation allows.  If you are too brief or cryptic, it may not jog your memory as you hoped when you come back to it in a few days.  Make your note legible!

2. Take a photo.  Take photos of the things that excite you visually when you are out and about. The photos may not become paintings, but they may give you ideas for backgrounds, moods, colours or compositions.

3. Do a quick thumbnail sketch. A tiny sketch should be sufficient, but if you are worried about details, take notes too.

4. Collect things. Postcards, pictures, clippings, ticket stubs, coins, stones, feathers, shells, bottle tops, cash slips, coasters, etc, can all become ideas for work or can be incorporated into the work.  They are also great reminders of mood, conversations and places.

“Ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with passionate devotion."

Max Weber

Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings - Day 1

This is the first in a series where I show you how to find those great ideas that will have you running to your easel!

I have been talking about how important it is for an artist to keep sketchbooks, notebooks, diaries and journals as part of the creative process.  I have described how to keep a Trash Can Journal, and its function, and also how and why to start an Picture Notebook. (Click on these links if you have not read these posts.)  In the previous entry, I listed 30 reasons why I carry a sketchbook with me and one of the reasons is that I get plenty of new ideas from looking through my old sketchbooks.

Where are your old sketchbooks?  Are they on a dusty shelf in your studio? In a shoe box under your bed?  Are they still packed in boxes since your last move?

Get out your old sketchbooks! They are a treasure trove of good ideas!

Go...find them...fetch them...Now!

Open them, look at them, carefully turn the pages and admire them.  Did you really have all of these ideas?  Clever thing!

Here are some pages from a 1997 sketchbook of mine (I had to ferret it out of a sealed box...)

My old sketchbooks, especially those that I may have forgotten, are full of ideas and images that I can use for new paintings.  Because I haven't seen them in a while, the content is fresh, and exciting.  And because I know that I did it all myself, I don't feel intimidated as I sometimes do when looking for ideas in other artists' work.

Some ideas in my old sketchbooks will spark new trains of thought that may have little to do with what is on the page, and others I may end up using almost unchanged.

There are a lot of things in a sketchbook that I might never use again.  But looking through them inspires me.

I never know what it is that might spark a fresh and exciting concept for a new painting or drawing, sometimes it's a colour, sometimes a technique, and sometimes it's just the act of looking at my own stored away ideas.  

A sketchbook is a place to put our ideas, if we keep our sketchbooks diligently (even sporadic is better than not at all), if we store our sketchbooks carefully, and if we remember to dust them off and go through them, we should never be short of ready to use, unique and personal content to spice up our paintings.

Click here for: Find great ideas for your paintings Day 2

30 Reasons Why I carry a Sketchbook

1. It makes me feel like an artist
2. I can doodle in it while I talk on the phone
3. I always have paper with me to jot down a thought or idea (or a phone number)
4. If I do some quick scribbles every day, eventually they add up to a lot of scribbles
5. I need something to do when my other half decides to fill up with petrol when I am in the car
6. I can look at it when I am eating out by myself and seem busy
7. Its easier to experiment in my sketchbook than in a drawing or painting
8. Having a sketchbook nearby, reminds me to use it
9. It keeps the creative juices flowing
10. It catches thoughts and ideas that I may otherwise forget
11. I can let myself draw badly in my sketchbook
12. I can let myself draw in blue pen in my sketchbook
13. I carry a sketchbook, because I love to start new ones
14. I also love to finish them
15. I get ideas from looking through old sketchbooks
16. My sketchbooks remind me of how far I have come on my artistic journey
17. They remind me of places that I have been to
18. I like to see how my style has changed over the years (or stayed the same)
19. I love notebooks
20. I like to make notes when I am think about something
21. I do thumbnail sketches of painting ideas in my sketchbooks
22. If I don’t write it down, I might forget it
23. Sketchbooks are good for boring meetings and lectures – I can fill several pages at one of these
24. Carrying a sketchbook makes other people think I am an artist
25. Doodling helps me think and listen better
26. Doodling helps me come up with ideas
27. There’s always something in my sketchbook that I can turn into a painting
28. I can be angry or miserable or sorry for myself in my sketchbook
29. I can be myself in my sketchbook
30. I don’t have to finish anything in my sketchbook – I can start something over and over again

Related Posts

Start This Journal Today!
Another Journal You Must Have

Another Journal You Must Have

A sketchbook is essential for any artist, but I find that I need several different notebooks, sketchbooks and journals to manage my artistic endeavours.  If you have already started your 'Trash Can Journal', then my next recommendation is that you:

Start an 'Picture Notebook'

What is a 'Picture Notebook'?

• This is the place where you stick in all the cuttings and clippings that delight your eyes.  You may have pictures on your fridge, filing cabinet or notice board, when you take them down, stick them in this book and keep them!!!
• Gallery invites, postcards, magazines, newspapers all have pictures that appeal to our artistic sensibility.  I think it's handy to have them all in one place.
• An 'Picture Notebook' is the place I turn to when my eyes are bored and need stimulation.  When I am tired of the visual things in my everyday life, and I need some colour and excitement, I can go to my 'Picture Notebook' to be revived.
• When I am looking for inspiration and ideas, I go to my 'Picture Notebook'.  It helps me find my creative sweet spot!

Pages from one of Kerry Daley's 'Picture Notebooks'

Several of Kerry Daley's 'Picture Notebooks' with clippings ready to be stuck in.

• Of course, you needn't keep your pictures neatly clipped out and stuck in a book - a folder, hanging file, or box would work just as well (and I think I have variations on all of those things).
• And then - it does not have to be pictures either...

More Stuff! (in my studio)

• I like things too - especially stones and bones and shells, and then of course, plastic animals.  I like to keep them in glass jars, like little specimens!
• Is there some way that you can start putting your visual stimuli all in one place (or two or three), somewhere you can access easily when you eyes are jaded and need a pick me up?
• Do you already have a system that you use that does the same thing for you?  I would love to hear about it!

Quote of the Day

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.  The creative mind plays with the objects it loves"

Carl Jung 

Start This Journal Today!

If you do nothing else to further your creative career, today, you MUST do this: 

Start a 'Trash Can Journal'  

One of Kerry Daley's 'Trash Can' Journals

What is a 'Trash Can Journal'?

• It is a concept I borrowed for a fabulous book called, Pencil Dancing, by Mari Messer.  She calls it a 'Trash Can Notebook'.  I read about it several years ago and have been using one ever since. 
• Mari Messer's 'Trash Can Notebook' is a place to write freely, but mine is more of a scrapbook.
• It is a holding place for everything - bits of paper, quotes, drawings, quick notes, brain storming, doodles, clippings, postcard, post-it notes, letters, lists
• Any bit of paper I become attached to goes in the 'Trash Can Journal'.
• I have also had a 'Trash Can Lesson Plan' folder for teaching ideas and concepts I am not quite ready to file away.
• I have a 'Trash Can House Book' for domestic things, recipes, take out menus, window cleaning company flyers, real estate agent business cards, anything I want to keep, but can't find a home for.
• My 'Trash Can Journal' is the first thing I turn to when I want to jot something down, or work something out, it is also the first thing I pick up when I am stuck for ideas.
• It's not neat and organised, everything is jumbled together in no particular order, although I do tend to date the page. (And cover it with cool paper.)
• I use cheap A4 lined notebooks and when one is full, I label the front with the starting date and the ending date, put it on my shelf, and start a new one.
• Try it out and let me know if it works for you!

Quote of the Day

"Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and the pupil are located in the same individual."

Arthur Koestler 

Other Stuff

Katherine Tyrell, blog post: Making a Mark: August 2010 - Who's made a mark this month? is a 'must read'! So much information and many valuable links. And while you are there, take a look around the rest of the site. With bloggers like her, who needs books?

Take a look at teesha's circus: 6x8 journal, a real visual feast!