Sorting Sketchbooks

sketchbooksLooking back over sketchbooks from the last ten or twenty years, I liked some of my bolder, simpler drawings, so I took a break and, using my Lamy Safari with the bold nib, drew the pile of A6 sketchbooks that I was going through.

When I’m struggling to find a particular drawing, I realise that I’d save myself a lot of time if I could get my sketchbooks properly organised; date order would be a good start.

labelOver the past four years of writing my Wild Yorkshire nature diary articles for the Dalesman magazine, I’ve sorted through most of my larger sketchbooks and stuck a label on the back of each one with a note of the start and finish dates and of the main locations that I visited.

As they don’t figure as much in my Dalesman pieces, my pocket-size sketchbooks, the ones that I use mainly about town, have been neglected, so I’ve been going through them today.

Westfield Road, Horbury, September 2008.
Westfield Road, Horbury, September 2008.

Some include holiday sketches, bringing back memories of Alpine lakes and Mediterranean coasts. I realise that I need to keep up my habit of dating and writing the location of every drawing because it’s amazing how easy it is to forget. I was puzzled by a familiar looking scene (above), so familiar that I hadn’t labelled it, which I couldn’t place until it realised that it was the bus stop that I’d used throughout my childhood and student days.

Another mystery was ‘Hollys mum’s garden.’ Who was Holly I asked Barbara? Then I realised that it was a drawing of holly bushes in my late mum’s front garden. 

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