Expressive Sketchbooks: Developing Creative Skills, Courage, and Confidence WHAT IS AN EXPRESSIVE SKETCHBOOK? An expressive sketchbook is a playground for your imagination—a place to nurture your creativity and develop your own artistic style. In this book, I provide lots of guideposts to light your way and help you develop a sketchbook that feels uniquely yours. This book is about exploring your call to create and coaxing those ideas out onto the page. It is about helping you make art that only you can create. MAGIC AND MOTIVATION Why develop your own sketchbook practice? Keeping a sketchbook will help you cultivate your own self-expression and creativity. This chapter is designed to help you unpack any obstacles and barriers that may be blocking your creativity. It will also help you understand your reason for starting a sketchbook and what you’d like your sketchbook to be. Look for tips on ways in which you can reflect upon and document your artistic interests and inspirations. GETTING GOING This chapter provides everything you need to get started in your sketchbook. It invites you to consider the type of sketchbook that best suits you and the various materials you can use. The variety of exercises are designed so that you can use them as jumping-off points and then adapt them to your own style. TECHNIQUES FOR EXPLORING AND EXPERIMENTING This section contains a host of practical techniques that I use when making art. I explain different methods to explore and experiment, and share ways in which you can be inventive with mixing art materials. My hope is that you apply, adapt, and alter these techniques to use the art supplies you have. GROWING YOUR IDEAS Now it’s time to take the practical tools and techniques you’ve learned in previous chapters and expand upon them. Begin with a theme or topic that fascinates you and experiment! PRACTICE AND PROGRESS You’ve tackled the techniques and learned how to dream up creative pages in your sketchbook that are a unique reflection of you. Now it’s time to learn what may be the most important part of the process: how to maintain your expressive sketchbook routine and incorporate art into your life for the long term. Here are a few ideas for ways you can overcome common pitfalls and nurture your artistic practice thoughtfully and with a kind heart. THE JOY OF DRAWING Ways to Start Drawing There is an energy and vibrancy about a quick drawing, an off-the-cuff quality that can be very liberating. A speedy drawing can have a certain beauty and an immediacy. When you practice quick drawing, try drawing several images on one page or do one drawing over and over again. Approach the same drawing with a variety of art tools, such as a pencil or thick felt-tip pen. If you haven’t drawn in many years, you may feel reticent to start. I am cheering for you! I encourage you to take action, dive in, and start drawing. The following are simple exercises to try on your subject of choice. They are designed so you have the freedom to experiment with them and make them your own. Don’t Look at the Page This is a super-quick exercise in which you draw the object without looking at the page. Instead, focus on your subject matter. Don’t let your pencil or pen leave the page—it should follow your eyes as you look at the contours and outlines of the object. Your drawing may look weird and distorted at first, but this technique helps to free you up, allowing you to really examine and understand what you are drawing, and not worry about the end result. You can’t be too precious about a drawing if you’re not allowed to even look at the page as you draw. The drawing can capture the essence of your subject and create an interesting starting point that you may add to and develop or leave just as it is. Draw the Space Around the Object It is useful to think about the area around your subject—the negative space. We often assume we know what a certain object looks like, so we draw how we think it looks rather than what we actually see. Drawing the space around the object is one way to capture its true form. By drawing the space around the object instead of the object itself, you bypass your assumptions. You are not drawing the thing, you are drawing the space that the thing sits in, which encourages you to draw from observation rather than assumption. Timed Sketches Setting time limits can be particularly helpful when getting started. Because you only allow yourself a limited amount of time, this technique takes the pressure off. The lower the expectations, the freer and more expressive you become. Draw the same subject with different time limits and then compare each drawing. Try the following: 1 minute5 minutes20 minutes1 hour
✔ Author(s): Helen Wells
✔ Title: Expressive Sketchbooks: Developing Creative Skills, Courage, and Confidence
✔ Rating : 4.6 out of 5 base on (315 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 163159835X
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
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