Sketchbook – Visual Diary

Sketchbooks are key to the development of my work. A visual diary used to record inspiration, a means to experiment in the execution of method and technique. A sketchbook is not something with which to be overly precious, it is a tool of great importance in which I set clear aims and objectives with regards the intended use of line, tone or colour.

I am a daily sketcher and have a number of sketchbooks of various sizes, formats and paper on the go at anyone time which I always have close to hand helping me to record things of visual significance, they are a facility to aid experimentation and a different means of recording my observations.

My sketchbooks often illustrate my daily life, my travels, my encounters, my dark and bright sides. A sketchbook can reveal artistic skill and emotional state, happiness, joy, contentment, anger and disillusion. Sketching is the fundamental skill of art, it is the basis on which all other skills are constructed be that an understanding of perspective, scale, composition, use of colour, application of paint.

To develop your artist skills draw daily recording your efforts in a sketchbook. The importance of a sketchbook should never be under estimated. Develop the sketching habit, become an addict of sketching regardless of your ability as a artist. Sketching can help your personal well being calming the stress and anxiety of life. Sketching is fun and compulsive.

A selection of sketchbook pages appears on this webpage. When viewing remember these are not finished pieces of artwork but an investigation of subject or technique used to help progress my skills or other finished works of greater refinement intended for exhibition or collection.