I’ve kept sketchbooks consistently ever since art college. For me they’re a means to practice and advance my technical skills, and a space to develop new ideas and cultivate my style. Keeping books, rather than collections of paper, helps to establish a narrative, encourages me to fill them, and, by the end, creates works of art in their own right.
At first I used Moleskines and Stillman & Birn Zetas, which suited me for a while, since I mostly worked in dry media. However by 2018 I decided to move away from the graphic style I'd been working in over the previous decade.
But as I started painting, and experimenting with different mediums, I found that Moleskine's thin, wood pulp-based paper just wasn't up to the task. It didn't have enough tooth for charcoal, and disintegrated under wet media.
Despite much searching I couldn't find what I wanted, namely an extremely hard-wearing sketchbook, which opened completely flat, with the same 100% cotton watercolour paper that I was, by then, using for my finished pieces. Instead I decided to learn bookbinding, and started making my own books. Soon I started making them for other artists too.
I tried a number of different mediums and techniques over the next couple of years, all of which Hot Press Fabriano Artistico took completely in its stride, including charcoal:
Stippling with Indian ink (great for screen printing, because it's binary yet can still create complex tones, but sooo slow and terrible for wrists):
Watercolour:
Gouache and gold leaf:
And Indian ink wash 🥰
Now as I come to the end of this sketchbook, I'm preparing to start a new body of work, drawing on everything I've learned and developed over the time of its creation.
However, whilst for me the last few years of sketchbook-keeping has been a bit like art bootcamp, different artists will of course have their own needs and habits.
For some, the book is the whole point - the end result, the artwork itself. For others, sketchbook-keeping may simply be a way to practice, or just a pragmatic place to store work. But whatever the reasoning, I still always champion sketchbook-keeping as a great artistic exercise, for beginners and advanced professionals alike.