My Summer Travel Journal

You may have read some of my previous posts about what I got up to over summer and today I thought I'd tell the story in a slightly more creative post - since that's what this blog is meant to be all about! I recorded my summer travels in a journal this year, keeping everything from tickets, receipts, maps, postcards, papers and basically anything that would lay flat and record what I got up to, food I ate and places I visited. Anything that holds a memory of a trip goes in my travel journal.

5 Tips For Visually Interesting Sketchbooks

What is it about sketchbooks that make them so intriguing to touch and feel? Is it the fact that they're the most raw insight into a persons creative process? It's no secret that I take great pride in my sketchbooks. Throughout my foundation course it's the thing that I have really consistently enjoyed creating and I actively look forward to updating mine on a daily basis. While a sketchbook is the least judgmental and most forgiving of any artwork, for some it can almost feel too free, and blank pages can be very intimidating! Recently I have shared some snapshots into my own sketchbooks (here and here if you're interested) and today I want to share some ideas and suggestions on how you could go about making your own sketchbook more visually intriguing.  

1. Keep Everything 
For me, displaying bits and pieces from my creative process is a big part of creating an interesting sketchbook. It can be hard to remember to do this to begin with but soon enough it'll become second nature. Everything from paper offcuts to material samples and receipts, anything that tells the story of your working process will make a great addition to a page. Your sketchbook will soon become something of a record of how your work was created which can be so fun to look back on.

2. Methods Of Attachment 
Something that I have found to be useful when I feel like a page is looking a bit dull is using a variety of methods for attaching page elements. For example, if you have a photograph, you might just glue it down with a regular glue stick, or you could use a ripped bit of making tape, a staple, a safety pin, sticky tape around the edge, use string, split pins etc etc. It's surprising how effective this can be at changing the whole look and feel of a page.

3. Variety Is Key
If you want to keep your sketchbook visually interesting throughout for either yourself or the viewer, having a variety of page styles is a great way to achieve this. One page might be full of drawing while the next is a written brainstorm, and the next might be photographs of your process or a mixture of techniques. Try to switch it up every now and again if you tend to stick to one style.

4. Bulk
"Bulk? What the heck is bulk?" I hear you ask. Well my friends, 'bulk' is what me and all of my friends at art school strive for in our sketchbooks. Have you ever seen a sketchbook that is so full to the brim that it will barely close? Yep - that's what we're all after! There's something so beautiful about a book that's so teeming with life, ideas and creativity. Of course, that's not to say that this suits everybody's style and taste, but for me, there's no greater feeling than literally seeing my sketchbook grow in size.

5. Learn To Let Go
This is probably the most important tip that I can give. Your sketchbook is yours and yours only. Ultimately you get to choose what goes in, how you want to work and who gets to see it. Learning to let go and be free with your creative self it vital. Don't hold back - your sketchbook is somewhere you should be able to make a mistake and not lose sleep over it! Don't get caught up with making everything look perfect, just let yourself create without worry and everything else will follow suit.

While these are just some of the things I do when making my own books, the best thing about a sketchbook is that it is completely personal to the creator. You may decide that non of these tips apply to your taste (although I would recommend considering #5!). The most important thing is to express yourself freely - there really are no rules!
What are some of the things you like to do when creating your sketchbooks? I'd love to know about your process! 

A Look Inside My Sketchbook: Remixing LOVE

Last month I created a post sharing some pages from inside my art foundation sketchbook, and I got some really lovely feedback from people saying it was something they were interested in seeing more of. It was really flattering to get such positive comments because anyone that knows me well will know that my sketchbooks are kind of my babies! So for this post I thought it might be nice to share a page from my current sketchbook in the context of the project it was produced for. 

Last weekend I was set a one day valentines project to complete. In short, the brief was remix 'LOVE' by Robert Indiana in any way we wanted to. It could be a flat artwork, a 3D model, we could change the colour, word or font, stack our own letters, create a photograph, alter the sentiment, literally anything! I chose to stick close to the original image, but I tuned it into an ice block! I photographed my giant ice cube in different locations around Manchester as it went through the melting process. It was a really fun little project and I enjoyed playing with the juxtaposition between the coldness of ice and the passionate connotations of love and the colour red. I certainly got some strange interesting looks from people while carrying that thing through the city! 

So, here is the sketchbook page I created to document my valentines day project along with a few of the finished photographs...

A Look Inside My Art Foundation Sketchbook

It is a very stressful time of the year for me at the moment, UCAS, digital portfolios, portfolio mounting and interviews seem to be taking up a huge chunk of my time and are obviously rather important. This week I have been busy running around trying to get all my work photographed and ready to be sent off to various universities. 

In the process of this however I have managed to get some images of pages from inside my foundation sketchbook which I thought would be nice to share here. I personally adore looking through other peoples sketchbooks and I find it incredibly inspiring to see different creative processes. So I thought it was about time I brought something to the party!

My sketchbook throughout the foundation course has become something of a visual diary. I try to add to it every day to show the entire process of all of my projects from start to finish. Photographs, samples and little explanations all tell the story of how I get from A to B. Hope you enjoy!

(P.S. I'm thinking about doing more posts about my experience doing an foundation course. Please let me know if you would be interested in this!)

Advice From Art School #1

Just in the first couple of months of my art foundation I've been given so much helpful and invaluable advice about art and creating from a group of tutors that really do know what they're talking about. A year is a very short space of time and I realised very quickly that I really need to make the most of the time I have with such talented and experienced people in the art field. That's why I started my 'Advice Book'. Since my very first week at art school I have been noting down little snippets of advice and general comments made during workshops, lectures, one to one sessions etc. that I don't want to forget and putting them into a tiny little sketchbook. I figured that once my year long foundation is over, I'll be able to keep and remember the advice I was given for a long time after!

So I thought, why not share a few pages in my advice book on here? I'm not sure how often these posts will go up, it will probably just be when I feel I have enough new helpful tips to make a new post out of. 

I hope you enjoy!

p.s. I need to think of something to do on the front cover of this little sketchbook! Any ideas? 

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