Sketch Booking Without a Purpose
The Best Way to Sketchbook IMO
Hey there!
So so excited to be writing the first real SubStack today!
I mean yeah, sure I wrote the intro, but that felt so “formal” and like something with a major defined purpose.
Today tho, it just gets to be fun which I am most excited about!
That being said I feel y’all need a lil artist backstory since not all of you are familiar with 25 Sweetpeas!
SOO….
I am an ocean inspired artists that makes a lot of my work digitally via Procreate with gouache brushes. So while it’s digital its still 100% hand painted.
From there I’ve made my art into cards, beach guides, art prints, stickers, bookmarks, recipe cards and ornaments for my shop.
Above is a lil look at some of my art!
Around Christmas I usually release some original Hand Painted Ornaments and I always have SO much fun with them!
Last year I also released my first original paintings and hope to do that more in the future because I do LOVE painting on wooden panels and creating things you just can’t digitally. Plus in this age of craving a touch of HUMAN touch you just can’t beat a hand painted original.
In fact I’ve actually just invested in a scanner too so I can now make prints of the originals. Woohoo!
Ok now back to talking about sketchbooks! 😂
Being a mainly Digital artist for the past few years I have lots of sketches in/on my iPad, but I miss out on the feeling of filling up a sketchbook, and I can’t just sketch anywhere if I have to have my iPad, so over the past few years I’ve started to sporadically sketchbook! It all actually started with a Coastal Living Magazine actually.
A few Christmases ago I got a Coastal Living Magazine and an Archer and Olive Dotted journal for Christmas. During that weird time between Christmas and NYE, I ended up doodling things from the Coastal Living magazine and it turned into my first real “sketchbook spread”.
It was so fun, I was doodling for no real reason.
Just for the fun of it!
If something in the magazine was cute or inspiring It made it in the spread. To this day its probably one of my favorite issues ever, and I keep it near me at all times in the studio. 😂
I had so much fun with this one spread that it made me realize how nice it was to have a physical media to flip through for inspiration. So I ended up signing myself up for a Coastal Living Magazine subscription.
It’s a quarterly magazine unfortunately tho, so you only get it 4 times a year, but the day a Coastal Living magazine arrived meant it was time for a sketch book spread.
I slowly started to get more and more comfortable in my sketchbook and last year I started to do more than just when a magazine arrived.
I doodled for research I was doing for particular projects, and I doodled my favorite summer days.
I started to take my sketchbook with me and just having it with me was nice. The coffee shop, and the beach the top spots for sure!
So skipping ahead to this past December I started binge watching peoples sketch book tours on Youtube and decided to flipping though my own and I noticed a few things….
Even tho yes, I had been using it for a few years it was still pretty empty. 🙃
So many of the random doodles lead to much bigger things within my shop even tho they were drawn with absolutely ZERO expectation of being anything more.
I can now look at so many things in my shop and tie it back to something random in my sketchbook.
For instance, I was looking at an issue of Coastal Living and they were talking about Oysters, and I had never drawn an oyster, so I added it to the spread naturally.
On the next page I doodled oysters to spell out Florida. I thought it was cute, but left it.
Months later I revisited it but this time on my iPad, and the next thing you know I had designed a new greeting card, bookmark, sticker, and recipe card.
All from a lil random doodle.
This wasn’t just a one time occurrence either.
I can tie back so many things inspiration origin back to something in my sketchbook.
When I first started designing stickers, I designed one that says, “Work with Inspiration, Not Expectation”, and my sketchbook certainly proved that to be right.
In most art instances I usually find that quote to be spot on. That and thinking never helps when you already have the idea, but that’s probably a conversation for another day.
“Work With Inspiration, Not Expectations”
So I decided 2025 was going to be the year I would sketchbook more, maybe even regularly but I also wanted to set myself up for success SO here is what I did.
I got a smaller sketchbook!
I wanted something that would fit in my purse so I could literally take it everywhere, and have no excuse to not use it.
I also thought smaller pages might make me sketch bigger. Now, I know this sounds weird, but if you look back at my Archer and Olive you can see how I work small and fill in full pages, but guess what with smaller pages I think I may be able to trick myself into working bigger?
Weird? Maybe, but if it works that’s great. If not, oh well!
Now I also went with a lower cost sketchbook, so you don’t have the guilt of messing up expensive paper. *Cringe* I know that’s weird, but I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I also decided I loved the pen loop on my archer and olive, and that this new sketchbook needed one too.
So I added one to the sketchbook, so when its in my purse there is always a pen attached and I literally have the extreme basics needed to sketch with!
I tried to set myself up for success.
We are now on the second month of the year, and I have regularly been sketch booking without any rules. Without expectation. So far its been great.
No, it hasn’t been daily, but it’s been more days than not, and it’s already helped my creativity so much.
Moral of the story is that keeping a sketchbook for no real reason is actually really great for so many different reasons.
It’s good for your creativity, its a good de stressor, it’s a great way to take a screen break and the list could go on.
So I am team, Keeping a Sketchbook without a defined purpose!
If you said yes, what have you learned from keeping a sketchbook? Lets chat in the comments!
I still feel really new to keeping a sketchbook but it already feels as if its been SO helpful for so many aspects of being an artist, and running my own business.
Well thank YOU for spending some time with me today!
Sea You Soon!
~Sarah
