Keeping a sketch book is not only fun, but it’s a great exercise to keep your drawings skills fresh and current! I carry a sketch book with me that just fits into my bag so I can jot down ideas as I go along or do a sketch of something I find interesting along the way. When we travel on a major trip, I write in the book every day, using it as a journal as well as a sketch book. Later after our return, I have a wonderful record of where we went and what we saw as well as thoughts, ideas, sketches, drawings and all sorts of information that I can review and read over later. It’s nice to be able to recall what I saw and what excited me enough to jot it down in the first place. I often refer to these sketch books many weeks afterwards, especially when I am putting together my photos to make sure I have the accurate name of what the place that the photo depicts. I love to look them over and see what ideas I can glean from them as well as any concepts I created from something that inspired me. So think about that, it’s really a good way to keep your sketches together in one place, dating them as you go and even just to use as an everyday idea book. It becomes a reference for you as you sit down to create something new to have these to look over and refer to as earlier ideas that you came up with. Let me share with you a few of my sketches to show you how I keep them and add to them with color swatches or other materials that are generated later on…you never know what might come out of these sketches and often I do refer to them as I am thinking about what I might create next for a design. I always seem to sketch on airplanes and have literally dozens of books of concepts that I have thought of as we are winging our way in the “friendly skies”. Sketching is also very cathartic I think…just link your brain to your hand and let her rip…I have created many product lines “Sky Sketching” over the years…just put the tray table down in front of you, sit back take out your book and your pen and enjoy the ride!
