Here you’ll get a peek into my sketchbooks where I show my workings behind my finished pieces or my observations of the world around me. I find it hard to keep sketchbooks sometimes. Pages of doodles would flow out of me when I was a more prolific sketch-booker, every scrap of paper that entered my life would be drawn on.
It is easy to let the distractions of life eat into the time I’d use to sketch in my earlier years.
My Master’s has seen a renaissance and became an important part of my research. I’ve also done some online art journaling courses with Jo Beale which I highly recommend.
Quite often my work evolves from materials rather than plans thought out in sketchbooks in advance.
The materials lead the process, especially as many are found.
The image shown is of the maquette that formed a taxidermy squirrel. Sketches evolve around the animal and the building process.
When I’m working on a piece of taxidermy the sketchbook and the piece inform each other, the page will include measurements and notes.
There will often be blood, observational drawings or an outpouring of ideas.
Drawings of elements of the build help focus my mind and improve on methodology and technique.
I’m often as intrigued by the look of the mechanics of the build and the materials used as I am with the finished piece. This is the inside of the squirrel sketched in pencil. You can see the final work here.
Over lockdown and beyond I started drawing with a group of artists online. We followed the book ‘Drawing with the right side of the brain’ by Betty Edwards.
I try not to be precious about sketching, I use anything to hand as inspiration or as a drawing medium