Staff Pick: Why You Should Keep a Sketchbook

I have always been horrible at keeping journals, since I was a child my attempts at keeping a scorecard of my life have been dismal. Being out of school and barely working any hours until April has not helped my lack of journaling enthusiasm. However, since I can remember, I have always carried a sketchbook with me. What started out as an obsession with coloring books and crayons, to just a lined notebook used half for math class and half for Disney characters I methodically drew, has since become a habit of mine. I now carry a 60 page, 6×10 mixed media Canson sketchbook nearly everywhere. When it’s not in my backpack, shoved in my desk, or in a tote bag, it is at the beach, in a plane, or on a monument tour.

This obsessive habit of mine has proven to be extremely helpful during a time like this. As much as I love to paint big canvases and use massive pads of watercolor paper, nothing is better than a sketchbook. You put whatever you want in there with no obligation, you can tell a story, share your feelings or just doodle a cartoon dog. When these next few months seem lonely and uncertain, there is a joy in finding love with your own art, which all starts in a sketchbook. 

Yes, what you put in your sketchbook is art, a doodle of a prom dress, a cartoon character you watched a tutorial to draw, stick figures of your friends or future tattoos. You don’t draw because you are a great artist, you draw because it makes you happy, because when you’re alone in your room and the news is blaring about a worldwide pandemic, sometimes the way to fix that is to sketch out a unicorn-mermaid hybrid. A sketchbook isn’t a tool for the most professional artists, it is for virtually anyone and can be filled with anything. Keep it on your desk, by your bed, you’ll grow creatively and hopefully find peace in chaos. Use a number 2 pencil, or crayons or those watercolors you have not opened since middle school. Fill it with stickers, washi tape, old pictures and poems. You do not keep a sketchbook because you are the next great artist, you keep a sketchbook because it is one of the few things that is truly your own, you shape its future and have full control over its contents. So please, pick up a pencil, grab a sketchbook and look at the world around you and draw what you want to see. Page by page your creativity and sense of being will grow.   

Find some future inspiration here: https://drawfee-generator.com/