liberated sketchbook

I had never really kept a sketchbook until a couple years ago.  I’d always wanted to, but I always felt the need for sketchbook images to be something, to look finished, neat, clean and well done—something others could see. I felt anxious at the idea of my failed ideas, mistakes, half-finished sketches, or bad drawings being all together in one findable place.

Lylee and me

In 2008, while visiting my favorite Lylee in Minneapolis, on one of my few trips back to the states while I was living in England–she and I decided to help creatively encourage and inspire each other by sharing a traveling sketchbook.  In this sketchbook, we’d scribble, sketch, and artistically play, and then mail it back and forth.

For the first time, I allowed myself the freedom to really play with ideas or thoughtlessly sketch, and the freedom to make mistakes.

Finally, with this new freedom in creativity, I was able to truly develop image concepts, keep notes of song lyrics, thoughts, quotes, and reference images. In all honesty, Lylee and I only exchanged the sketch journal a couple of times. While our project itself wasn’t necessarily a huge success. But the process of inspiring me, and teaching me to embrace using a sketchbook was very successful.