The Drawing Club

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98 The Drawing Club

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Self-expression in a personal

and defined space

Sketchbooks can serve as both a practice space and a creative

space. I have honed my skills in sketchbooks, and I have ex-

plored some of my best creative ideas in them. They’re portable

and easily adaptable. To this day, when I walk into an art store

and see a display of sketchbooks, I get excited thinking about

all the possibilities.

My students at Art Center and the artists at The Drawing Club

use sketchbooks differently. The students tend to use it for prac-

tice—to rack up drawing mileage—while the more experienced

artists use it as a personal, creative space for exploring design

problem solving.

At The Drawing Club, the page is a place where the artists

feel comfortable. They use it to explore page design and charac-

ter design and experiment with different media. Then they can

look back and see their journey, which is a story in itself.

Students in my head-painting class at Art Center, on the other

hand, have an assignment of drawing at least ten heads a week

in their sketchbooks. Ninety percent draw exactly ten heads

each week. For them, it’s all rote.

The other ten percent take it to the next level. One of my

students did 50 to 150 head drawings each week. Somewhat

predictably, he improved five times faster than everyone else.

He would start out with the basics. Then he would do his own

research, looking for examples to reinforce that week’s lesson.

Master copies of those examples and his own personal explo-

ration followed. I would find myself having to work hard to try to

find something constructive to say beyond what he was already

doing and thinking.

Because the assignment was to work in a sketchbook, this

student was able to contain his practice into a definable space.

It helped him to better measure his practice. He was able to

literally see how much he was doing, and it was always conve-

niently nearby because he took it everywhere.

Circus, black and brown pens in a sketchbook, Frank Stockton Circus, black and brown pens in a sketchbook, Frank Stockton

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Chapter 7: Sketchbooks

At The Drawing Club, the page is a place where the artists

feel comfortable. They use it to explore page design and charac-

ter design and experiment with different media. Then they can

look back and see their journey, which is a story in itself.

Students in my head-painting class at Art Center, on the other

hand, have an assignment of drawing at least ten heads a week

in their sketchbooks. Ninety percent draw exactly ten heads

each week. For them, it’s all rote.

The other ten percent take it to the next level. One of my

students did 50 to 150 head drawings each week. Somewhat

predictably, he improved five times faster than everyone else.

He would start out with the basics. Then he would do his own

research, looking for examples to reinforce that week’s lesson.

Master copies of those examples and his own personal explo-

ration followed. I would find myself having to work hard to try to

find something constructive to say beyond what he was already

doing and thinking.

Because the assignment was to work in a sketchbook, this

student was able to contain his practice into a definable space.

It helped him to better measure his practice. He was able to

literally see how much he was doing, and it was always conve-

niently nearby because he took it everywhere.

He saw his sketchbook as a place where he could take

responsibility for his practice. Over the course of the term, his

sketchbook transformed from a practice space to a personal,

creative space. As the term finished up, his sketchbook became

100 percent his space, and it became the starting point for many

of the original ideas he pursued in his career.

The sketchbook might be the tool that helps you contextualize

a series of ideas in your work, or it might enable you to see the

linear progression of an idea that developed organically.

Circus, black and brown pens and watercolor in a sketchbook, Frank Stockton

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