Sketchbook Masterpiece

Danger! Danger!

Normal sketchbook page stuff for me. No composition, no planning, no perfection.

It didn’t start with social media.

But social media made it so much worse.

I’m talking about the ‘perfect sketchbook’ problem.

About 18 years ago, something new appeared on a few illustrator’s websites: Sketchbook links. A visitor could browse through a few (or sometimes many) pages of an artist’s personal sketchbooks to get a glimpse of the work they did “off the clock.”

These sketchbook pages NEVER looked like any sketchbook pages of mine. Nor did they look like sketchbook pages of my friends.

They were perfect.

In fact, they were basically finished drawings, many of them with complex compositions, rendered in color and filling the entire page.

But as I wrote above, only a few artists shared this stuff. Very talented artists. And I admit I was fascinated by it. I wondered how they could possibly pull off masterpiece after masterpiece in their sketchbooks, like it was nothing. Where were all the half-finished disasters and false starts? The typical pages of disconnected body parts, random nearby objects, and overlapping faces?

I thought sketchbooks were for … sketches. Quick observations, rough ideas. Sketchbooks were for figuring things out.

These beautiful drawings people were sharing felt like something else. They may have been created — in — an actual sketchbook, sure, but they could easily hang on a gallery wall. It was weird.

Cut to present day Instagram, where numerous artists throw around the word, ‘doodle,’ to describe gorgeous drawings they worked on for four solid hours. Or heaps of videos where people flip through an entire sketchbook of total perfection. What is happening, here?

Well, clearly this stuff gets clicks. And it makes the artists who share this work seem superhuman and incapable of error. That can’t hurt one’s personal brand! So, of course, these posts aren’t going anywhere.

But there is a real problem here. Actually, there are at least two problems. Both of them have to do with people’s expectations.

Problem 1: Prospective clients or non-drawing viewers will assume this insane level of skill is perfectly normal and something an artist can do while waiting at the DMV. Not good. We need the real process to be something that is appreciated, so we are paid accordingly for the serious thought and effort that goes into the creation of a finished image. Creating the impression that we just dash this stuff off, producing pure awesomeness with every attempt, could make it seem less special/ less rare (and therefore less valuable).

Problem 2: Students and aspiring young artists see this god-tier stuff and are afraid to keep a sketchbook of their own. They worry about messing up a page with a bad drawing. But folks: sketchbooks are where we should be making ALL the bad drawings. The very definition of a sketchbook seems to be changing with every perfect-sketchbook-page social media post.

I don’t like it.

And I’m not sure what to do about it except write this and share it. Surely, others have already brought this up in newsletters or posts, so I’m just adding to the pile. But I think it’s important for more professional artists to bring attention to this problem.

Possible ways to make this better:

• Maybe we need a new word for this kind of work. It lives in a thing we call a sketchbook, but I think we should call it something else. I can’t think of anything clever at the moment. If you have some ideas, please share them in the comments.

• We could make it normal and ‘safe’ to share more ‘real’ sketchbook pages that are filled with unfinished stuff of multiple levels of quality. I know it’s scary to post anything that isn’t spectacular, but if enough people do it and give proper context, it might alleviate the pressure the younger and/or less experienced artists out there are feeling to go from Zero to Leonardo in just a short time.

• Art teachers can frequently remind students of the value of a sketchbook that is used purely as a place to try things, practice, grow, experiment, FAIL, journal … it should be a no-pressure zone.

What do you think about all this? Please let me know.

Sorry for not writing last week. Something big came up. More on that later.

Thanks for reading and sharing The Accidental Expert (it helps!). Until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and I’ll say, Ciao for Now.

PS: Here is a random drawing for you that I’m thinking about maybe turning into a book, called, “Walking the Cat.” I’m totally serious, so don’t steal it!