Sketching, sketching!
I’ve not posted any sketches to the blog for a while, for a variety of reasons, the main one being that I’ve just not been travelling very much lately, and it’s on train journeys that I tend to find the time to sketch and doodle for the most part. Most of this past year has been spent in the studio every day, working on overdue picture books and other work tasks, no trip to Tokyo last year, (almost) no train journeys outside this area. The fact is I just don’t sketch as much when I’m in the home/studio all the time. One of my New Year resolutions is to get out a lot more, it’s important to refresh, exercise your legs … and brain!
I’ve not posted any doodles from my sketchbook pages either recently, partly for the same reason. But also I made a conscience decision last year not to post idea drawings to social media, for once a drawing is “out there” it’s shared, it’s somehow “finished” so I thought I’d be less likely to do anything else with it, like re-work it as a finished illustration/exhibition piece, or develop it into a story. I also wondered what my patient editors may think of it all – are they not worrying “why does he have time to doodle and post things on social media? What about my deadline?” If you’re in your work studio (as opposed to time off on a train journey) is doodling simply a form of procrastination, distracting you from the real job in hand?
And there’s the dilemma.
Drawing for yourself is good for you, sketching and doodling is very important for illustrators, without it we become stale, we need to sketch and doodle to explore and express our creativity outside the confines of commissions. Sharing encourages you to draw more and create new ideas – one drawing shared makes you want to create another. But you still have to work and earn a crust!
Getting the balance right is the key thing, everyone has ‘time-off’ from work, whether you realise it or not, no artist works from early morning until late at night without break, seven days a week. The challenge is to identify those transient time-off moments and focus on using them in a creative way, though it may be difficult to differentiate between time “on” and time “off” when your studio is a room in your domestic home. Switching between work and non-work is tough, work and home life, everything blends together. You can try placing a sketchbook in every room in the house, so that when the urge to sketch hits you the materials are always at the ready, however there no guarantee you’ll use them. It’s not about the convenience of materials, it’s focusing the brain on using time-off to sketch, and that’s very tough in a home studio.
So this is another reason it’s important to just get out, get away from the studio for a change of scene, encourage yourself to have “sketchbook lunches” in cafe’s etc….. if only there was a decent cafe near where I live!
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