I'm afraid of my sketchbook

...but I'm not running away anymore

My sketchbook scares me. It sits there, blank pages blazing white at me, daring me not to mess it up. Most of the time, I avoid it. I pretend I’m too busy to sketch, or too tired. I put it in a drawer and forget about it. I buy a new one when the other one is only a quarter full because the new one will magically “fix” my fear of sketchbooks…until it joins the others in the drawer.

I love looking at sketchbooks. I really like the ones with half finished ideas, and scribbly notes. But when I make a page that is scribbly or rough looking, I want to hide my sketchbook under a rock and forget I ever touched it. I know I’m not alone in this.

Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of videos by Chris Piasick, which have been inspiring me to get into drawing daily again.

In addition, my friend Megan has been working on a personal project that involves daily effort and she is making amazing progress at it- she is almost at her goal! Seeing her progress gives me a POWERFUL itch to try something like that as well.

The problem is, the fear is still there, lurking. I guess what I’m really afraid of is my failure with consistency. I’ve never made it far into challenges, or even habits. I always forget, or get too busy, or find some excuse to let things slide. It is maddening to me that I can’t seem to get myself to do the thing I need to do.

Then this video popped up in youtube:

Based on this post from Sophie Yanow.

I feel like I need to try again. (Past me even wrote a blog post about this, years ago!)

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So, what will be different this time?

If you find yourself in the same place as me where you are dreading your sketchbook, what might you need?

1. I have been spending a lot of time in therapy, and reading lots of self help books. I’ve leveled up on my emotional regulation skills which involves talking to myself kindly throughout the process, repeatedly checking in with my body and soothing my nervous system with calming breaths, taking things slower than I think they should take, and trying to push myself along as if I were a child learning a skill for the first time. Practice patience and kindness!

2. Keeping multiple “sketchbooks.” I’ve been doing some experimenting and I’m learning that I seem to be able to sketch loosely on paper that already has marks on it. This could be a dot grid notebook or an old planner that I am repurposing as a sketchbook. Then I have my fancy white page sketchbook that I can do more intense media experiments in. Bouncing between the three of them, with the dot grid and the old planner acting as a “warm up zone” for me to dive into the fancier sketchbook seems to be a way to trick my brain into getting over the weird fear of messing up that still shows up for me.

   

   

   

3. Listen to something to distract yourself while sketching. It might be different for you, but I seem to be able to happily sketch away while I’m listening to someone talk. So if I put on a lecture, audio book, or podcast I don’t seem to have the same hang ups as when I sit down to FOCUS on my sketchbook. I have more creative ideas, and it becomes almost meditative.

4. Switch between observational drawing and iterative drawing. I could draw from observation all day, every day, but the real gold for an illustrator is when you start drawing from imagination. But THAT is the scary part. So following this framework by Tom Froese will be a way for me to challenge myself, but still enjoy the process of sketching.

5. Utilize an Idea Bank. This is a list of things I like to sketch, or I am curious about. Following this list will mean that I don’t have to come up with an idea every time. I always have something to lean on. I have an airtable database that I add to whenever any idea comes up throughout the day. At this point, the list is getting pretty long!

6. Find a pretty way to cover up mistakes I don’t want to keep/ Find a way to live with mistakes. My new rule is that I have to let “ugly” drawings live untouched in my sketchbook for a week. Often, if I give them time I find them charming after a while. If I don’t like the drawing after a week, I can cover it up with scraps of pretty paper and draw on top.

   

   

7. Minimum 5 minutes. Maximum 1 hour. Anything in between that time is golden, and I’m allowed to take breaks. (I find my brain/bladder has to have a break every 30 minutes, regardless what activity I’m doing)

So, that’s it! I’m going to try this again. I’ll be posting in notes as I follow up this habit. I hope that if you want to start sketching this list helps! Let me know how it goes for you and your observations about your sketching process! I’d love to hear about it.