Koosje Koene on why you should have a sketchbook

Although I often draw on scraps of paper, Koosje Koene in her new book, Life Is Better When You Draw It, makes a compelling case for why you should keep a sketchbook:

“Sure, you can draw on loose pieces of paper. Plain copier paper and a ballpoint pen will get you a long way. But then what do you do with all those drawings on loose sheets? Before I started my sketchbook practice, I would use all kinds of drawing pads and sheets of paper. I would rip the drawings from the pad, keep the ones I liked, and throw away the stuff I didn’t like. The ones I liked ended up somewhere in a drawer and I would forget about them. It was easy to not <<push through>> a little; I’d start a drawing, and when I didn’t like it, I’d stop, crumple up the paper, and start over. That, I can tell you, is a way to get frustrated about the process very quickly!

When you work in a sketchbook, you’ll have your drawings all in one place, and over time, you can <<read>> your own illustrated story and see your progress. There will be drawings in there that you might have tossed into the trash can if they were done on a sheet of paper. Why is this a good thing? Because instead of just throwing them away, you’re committing to working on the page. By doing that, you give a drawing a little more love and not give up on it before the process even barely takes off.

When a drawing in your sketchbook doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to, you may feel grumpy about it, but if you look at it again after a while, you might actually like it, and the flaws that initially irritated you don’t stand out that much anymore. If you had binned it, the learning curve would have stopped right where you disqualified the drawing.

Treat yourself to a sketchbook and you are treating yourself to a safe place to play, experiment, make mistakes, have glorious victories, and learn from all of it.”