so I was in the studio yesterday working on my new A3 sketch book that I am using to plan out the degree show. when I started talking to a student in level 5. he was asking me how I was finding it and I was asking him if he was nervous about moving up to level 6. The conversation led on to my sketchbook work, and we started talking about what the Sketchbook was actually used for. I showed him my A5 red book, that is my diary of the things that I have been doing and I talk about use it to jot down ideas as well as reflect on my state of mind, you can see my moods as you flick through the pages. I see the sketch book as a tool to Explain things to myself a way of showing the questions that I ask myself. to me the sketch book is more for me then it is the tutors. its a place where I can keep track of where my mind state actually is.
I found it interesting to hear what someone else’s opinion on the matter actually was. to me this is how I have progressed with my sketchbook work. in level 4 my work was all done on eaver A5 or A3. i found that the A3 was normally very basic and held more of a lay out of a space, I would use this size book for more visual aid, whereas an A5 book would be filled with writing and was more explaining the idea. this worked for me as a lot of my ideas I come up with them on trains so its naturally a lot easier for me to write them down in a small book then in a A3 size book.
when I moved into level 5 I started using lots of different sketchbooks for different ideas but this didn’t work to well for me as I started losing interests in some projects. this could be due to not looking at a particular book or it getting lost amongst the pile of other books, in the end I was left with lots of books with lots of empty pages. I didn’t like this style of working I felt that I was to stretched I never felt like I was working more playing catch up with books. I personally feel that this was shown in the quality of my presentation of the work. I want happy with this so i decided to go back to the way i felt more comfortable in level 4.
I have found that my sketchbook in level 6 has been a major help, between that little book and this blog I feel I have been able to lay my thought process out the book is like a update, I try to touch base as I call it, putting in ideas or things that I have been up to. I don’t often write in it every day otherwise I feel it would become very repetitive. I summarise conversations that I have had with teachers and I have found when going over the book in some weeks even months that conversation I have had has triggered when looking back and has helped me make a better formed response when I look at my own work.
It was interesting to see another persons take as to what they put in the sketch book. how they felt it was best to keep a big sketch book and they feel the need to cover the page with drawings and artist’s work.
