Sketch Diary

I don’t use my sketchbook as a proper journal, or diary. No ‘dear diary’ or requirement to make a note of every detail or moment. But I do always add the date — I’m not sure I’d be physically capable of turning the page if I hadn’t popped the date somewhere — and almost always a little note of what I’ve drawn. You might think you’ll remember what you were doing/thinking of/aiming for but, please trust me, you might not.

Brunch with my daughters. They played dominoes and were excited by the squeezy ketchup, so I gave it a focus of its own.

I very rarely sketch on location. I would like to but, if I’ve packed up my sketching kit and taken it out I can guarantee I won’t have time to use it. And if I spot something sketchable, I will almost certainly have nothing to hand other than an old receipt and a tiny IKEA pencil. (I have done some sketches with a tiny IKEA pencil. They have not yet seen the light of day.)

So I tend to snap a photo. Thanks be for the modern world and always having a camera to hand. I then come back to it when I have the time and turn it into a sketch.

Gate into Hampton Court. Complete with traffic cone.

I took a photo of this gate into Hampton Court Palace out of the car window whilst sitting in traffic. I just liked the shape of it, and the colours. Of course, sometimes I get home and look at my photos and wonder what on earth I was thinking about — but then I don’t sketch them, and I haven’t wasted a page on something that perhaps didn’t resonate. (Or, arguably, missed the moment to capture whatever did catch my eye. But I prefer the first interpretation.)

John Lewis cafe, around Christmas time.

For this sketch of the John Lewis cafe, I laid down some colour on the page first. The purple splodge and orange stripe. I do this before looking at my photo — the point of it is that the colour doesn’t relate to the image. It sounds odd, but somehow often adds something you weren’t expecting to the sketch when you start drawing on it.

Somewhere in the Lanes in Brighton.

Another advantage to sketching after the event from photos? You don’t get frozen fingers. It was very cold when I took this photo in Brighton. Almost too cold to snap the photo; certainly too chilly to draw anything other than a frigid scrawl.

Sometimes my sketch diary just diarises that I’m sat in my studio, looking at my pen pot. And you know what, that’s fine too. I like to remember the peaceful, drawing days as well as the trips out. What I end up with is a sketchbook that documents my life, my reality. I don’t think you can aim for better than that.