The art of a sketchbook ...

I love sketchbooks.  Love them.  I don't care if they are big or small, thick or thin.  And I particularly love seeing other peoples sketchbooks.  Seeing another persons sketchbook is like peeking into what makes that sketcher person tick... their personal thoughts.  A mystery of sorts.  

A lot of people feel their sketchbooks are private and won't show them to others. Others only show off their 'very best' sketchbooks. The books that are perfect. Work that could be front and center at any art show.  But, the best to me are the ones that have a little of this, a little of that and a variety of subjects sketched, painted or pasted in them.

Here are a few of my sketchbooks. 

I still have my very first one, its the second spiral bound book from the  right.  In it I see notes and drawings (mostly pretty crude) of things that I felt, at the time, needed to be written down and sketched, sometimes just to see how well I could draw them.  Things that were important to me at a given moment.

I usually mix up the style of sketch I put in my sketchbooks.  Sometimes I do a contour drawing.  I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I love contour drawing.  Its never perfect but somehow the unrefined drawing takes on a life of its own and ends up looking pretty good without any formality.  I just love them.

Other times I do a little watercolor sketch in the sketchbook.  I have a couple of small watercolor travel palettes and I often bring along one of them with my sketchbook when we go someplace.

Still other times I am attempting to make a more accurate pencil drawing like the one above. 

In the last photo I've made a pencil sketch and written some information down like it was a personal journal, noting the time of day and the weather conditions.

Because I think most of us enjoy seeing other peoples sketchbooks I've decided to share some of my sketchbooks with you.  Baring no problems,  The Art of a Sketchbook will show up as a regular Friday blog post.

I hope you will enjoy viewing my sketchbooks as much as I enjoy sharing them with you.