I Used to Think I Was Too Old to Start Sketchbooking

For the last few months, I’ve been exclusively sharing illustrated legal explanations. The law is everywhere right now, in egregious ways, and I want to us all to pay attention to it! Thanks for joining me in that frustrating adventure.

But I still want to talk about creativity now and then. And when the law or life are just too much sometimes, creativity is a way through.

At some point in my teenage years, because I wasn’t regularly keeping a sketchbook, I decided that it was too late for me: I wasn’t really a sketchbook person. For a while, this didn’t really bother me. I was a “languages person.” I was “wool girl.1” I was about to go to law school. I wasn’t an artist.

In law school, I was swallowed by dense materials. I fell asleep constantly. Everything was serious, black and white, and I needed to balance it out. To stay awake, I started drawing my notes in class. I used markers to make colorful study guides. I still thought I had missed the sketchbooking boat, but I was getting closer.

After law school, I finally bought myself some sketchbooks and started filling them. (That is how you become someone who keeps a sketchbook. You just do it.) I slowly developed a daily practice. I would draw bits about my day and then come back a few days later to color it in with watercolors.

I would draw the details of lovely days,

relatively average ones,

and days that left me fuming.

The great thing about this process is that it pushes you past whatever mood you’re in and creates something new. I have no idea what I was mad about on August 8, 2019 (likely academic bureaucracy), but now I have these colorful splotches that I love looking at.

I once had a job where my office was located directly above a frequently used parking garage. Every time the garage door went up or down, the rumbling. THE RUMBLING! At a certain point, this became so distracting that I had to transform it into something else. For a few weeks, I had a practice of drawing something each time the garage door went up or down.

I’m not sure how much work I was getting done, but I’ll blame that on the garage door. I have many more pages of these than I am showing you here.

Needless to say, I had some emotions about this garage door.

Now, I can look back at this and laugh. Actually, some of the frustrating is coming back as I look at them. I hold these feelings simultaneously

I call this practice of mine “sketchbooking,” and my friend K. Woodman-Maynard calls this type of art “diary comics.” Both are artistic drawing practices that you do regularly and usually not for show. They can help process whatever is going on and transform it into something new, something you may even appreciate revisiting later.

K. Woodman-Maynard has been doing a series on diary comics the last few weeks, which I suggest reading, if you want to learn more. (Here’s one to start with, then check out Kelcey Ervick’s approach, too). Her approach is especially great if you’re interested in developing some experience drawing comics.

If you want to document your perspective in these unprecedented times, go out and get a sketchbook and give it a try.2 Use stick figures and words and record what you’re seeing. Don’t worry too much how it looks. Try using watercolor or markers to color your drawings however you like. Fill the entire book, even if you think some pages are ugly. (I have curated the pages above to be ones I think are attractive. I have loads of ugly ones.) Eventually, put the sketchbook on a shelf. Come back later and admire it and look back on how you transformed your great, blah, and awful days into art.

Thanks for being here! I do appreciate you!

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