Project Books (taster)

I suspect when say sketchbook, a lot of you will be cringing and saying ‘please no, don’t make me use a sketchbook, I can’t draw’. I am not here to make you do anything but I do want to talk through some reasons for using a sketchbook. Would it help to call it something else? Notebook? Ideas book? Project book?

I've posted earlier today on my blog about some of my sketch books which you might find useful to explore before working through this post about creating and using a book of some sort for your work.

I used to be completely resistant to sketchbooks because I don’t really draw  but as I have developed my work, I have found that project books are really useful to me. I wish I had kept a record of my development work for the first narrative project I did, Figures of Africa, and for the early part of Criminal Quilts. I have bits and pieces of the thinking around these projects in other notebooks and sketchbooks but nothing that is really useful to me in either looking back or revisiting interesting ideas I didn’t complete.

I know plenty of artists teach a method of sketch booking or share their own style. I don't have a set of rules to follow but just want to share how I use project books and if you would like to try this, please do. 

Firstly think about how you like to work. Are you expansive and messy and use lots of things? Are you neat and meticulous and work small? Or something in between? I am quite big and messy really so I prefer to use a large book which gives me lots of space for writing, drawing, collaging and creating. I have used small project books when I know I need to carry them around for research visits and taking into museum stores etc. But for my creative and experimental work, I like a bigger book. Some of my project books are A3 which gives me a huge spread of pages to work on, although some of the square ones are a little smaller. I also love brown Kraft paper books although they are not fun to draw or write on easily. Sometimes I add my written or drawn work on other paper and paste it in. But the brown background works for my style. Otherwise I use pretty simple stapled books or spiral bound when I know it will be viewed a lot for projects. 


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