One of the keys to success of any type of artist is their sketchbook.   I have been using a sketchbook since I was a teenager.  There were periods – loooong periods – of time when I did not use them.  Whether it was during the time I had busy children, or when I was ill.  Now I see them as an integral part to my art.

I am still developing a sketchbook habit.  To draw something every day, even if it is just a small thumbnail, challenges me to think and act like an artist.  It is an affirmation of what I am and do.  Of how I live.

Sketchbooks can be repositories for a lot more than sketches.  They are really a way to download ideas from your brain to the page, in whatever form that might take.  It might be a photograph, a sketch, some colour ideas, stitch ideas, design ideas, inspiring quotes, notes on creativity and learning, inspirational books/articles, etc.  Mine includes facial tissue boxes with designs that inspire me, among other things.  Whenever I find a design or something that inspires me, I find a way to put it or the idea in my sketchbook somehow.

I like to treat myself to a new sketchbook every now and then, just to entice me to draw.  Time is fleeting, and I want to capture all the ideas I can on paper.