dooodles

Nine years of painting in a sketchbook

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As a freshman in art school I cringed when I was told that students were required to keep a sketchbook. I never draw preparatory sketches because I like to work a painting out as I go, not in advance. When shown a finished artwork and its original sketch, I usually find the first draft to be more spontaneous, energetic, fresh and beautiful. But I was an obedient student so I forced my hand and began drawing in a Moleskine journal.

Drawing in public places always led to striking up conversations with strangers and helped me to make friends outside of school. I began drawing and experimenting on a daily basis. I bought acrylic ink for a school assignment and poured some into my sketchbook using an eye dropper. I liked how the ink bled onto other pages, adding color and texture. I fell in love with the medium and started drawing with ink using a dip pen and brush.

It’s difficult to use dip pens, brushes and ink jars while sitting in a cafe, so I began painting in my room. The privacy loosened me up and my themes became more personal. For years I was in the habit of punctuating paintings with song lyrics, but I finally started using my own poetry. After a while, I grew so invested in the sketchbooks that I began referring to them as “books of paintings” to imply they were complete, indivisible artworks.

I used to surf the internet to find images to draw, but that became boring because I kept googling the same things: antelopes, construction cranes and light houses were among my usual search terms. In 2011 I got into photography and started using my own photos for reference. Now I exclusively paint scenes from memory or personal photographs.