📖 The Quote
‘Pictures are a way of representing the world - and also of understanding and examing it. That is, they are a form of knowledge and a means of communication.’ - David Hockney, A History of Pictures
✏️ The Sketch(es)
Step 1. Pick a medium, that is: constrain your practice.
For example, use paper or use digital drawing. Sketch with a pen or a pencil, or with a specific colour palette. You could also use watercolour or oil techniques instead. Or even a mixed media with collage. Anything that involves drawing and that is accessible.
I am drawing with my iPad in Procreate, with a reduced palette of 3 colours per sketch.
Step 2. Do a sketch every day for a week.
This sketch will be the result of your observations, thoughts, or emotions. It will be a visual journal. You can do this step in 2 different ways:
A) Think about a theme or a specific question to answer upfront. For example, you can focus on sketching people or something you learned today.
B) Go with the flow and sketch when you feel something is grabbing your attention. In this case, you might be surprised to discover a recurring theme or interesting obsessions.
Step 3. Don’t be afraid to break these rules!
It’s your personal sketch journal, so take these only as recommendations. In my example below, I have sketched some views I found interesting across different interior spaces or items at my home. I used three colours in each drawing to register lights and shadows.
💡 Some Thoughts
Keeping a sketchbook of your own ideas and observations is an excellent way to practice drawing as well as training the act of looking harder.
As designers, registering the world through our eyes, pencil in hand, can be a great way to retain and consolidate those observations and learnings from the built environment around us.
‘We see with memory’, says David Hockney - In a time when photographs are so easy to execute, pausing and taking time to look and sketch can also be a great way to capture memories: a dreamy trip, a special event, the interesting city you live in...
🖼 The Artist
Paula Bonet (one of my favourite artists) recently published ‘Los Diarios de la Anguila’, a couple of personal sketch journals she developed during her travels back in 2018 when she was writing her first book.
The journals are a delight to see - and to feel.
The pages are filled with people she met in her travels, photographs of exotic yet intimate places, thoughts on motherhood, on being a woman and on drawing, memory pictures… ‘Los dibujos de memoria son los mejores’, she re-affirms.
’The best pictures are those from memory’.
Happy sketching! 💫✏️
Ana