How to Use Sketchbooks to Generate Ideas

so i want to show a little bit about how i work with sketchbooks because i'm often asked how do you translate what you do in a sketchbook to paintings and i don't so let me show you what i do do this is um what's called a concertina sketchbook that's not relevant really it's just the type of book it is it opens out that way instead of opening out like a sketchbook this is a sea white book but you could i use all sorts of sketchbooks i just like the paper in these because it's quite good for a lot of paint so in this book i literally just do this for myself and i play and just put things down and see what i like and what i don't so the mixture of bought collage paper homemade collage paper found papers and lots and lots of paint and underneath this there's also some ink on here you can see in some places but the point is i'm going through as as i'm looking at these and saying other parts i really like really really like these big scribbles this was done with um regular chalk pastel and then fixed i really like that big scribble in relation to everything around it i love this page this is collaged tissue paper so i made this shape on tissue paper by painting onto wet strength tissue paper and then scratching through making shapes and then applying it on here and i just like the way it looks over the light paint because you can't even see that it's tissue paper but where it's gone over the light paint it looks really effective so i like that and i like it in contrast to what's around it i like how it's kind of exploding out i maybe don't like that it's right in the middle but i like that this page far less successful for me very busy lots of stuff going on all clashing nothing's really the star here that's the star there's no doubt about that here it's a bit of everything and i really don't like this which i painted on um and this is not standing out this is another one of these i did a lot of them at the same time but where i placed it here it's not standing out so that page is not working for me i really really like this so why do i like this i like the contrast of i don't like this where i tore something off i need to cover that up but i like the contrast of these huge circles which again i painted onto wet strength tissue paper and then stuck that down here and if you don't know what wet strength tissue paper is just google it you they use it to make lamp shades with often to decorate lamp shades with apparently very good stuff you can paint on it and then when you stick it down not much i mean you can see that it's tissue there it's not fully stuck down but it looks like you painted it on but because you're painting separately on something else you can be a bit bolder but i like the juxtaposition of that bold against this found paper which is an old letter from somebody so that's interesting to note i don't like this page there's nothing in there that i like quite like parts of that page but i feel like it's a jumbo i really like this page again what do i like big shape against more subtle smaller things and there's another big shape here but it's very different from that big shape so i'm liking the contrast this is much more subtle than a page like that one obviously i've not i've not gone this is a first layer and i've not gone over it with paint uh quite like this again big shape and then space this one i feel is too mess messy i feel if i lightened up that got rid of that big dart shape and opened it up that could look a lot better so even just putting something like that over can you see it just takes that big dark shape away and then even maybe getting rid of a lot of that shape there would open it even more in fact i would do more but i don't like that blue on it that's too dark as well but if i was to cover that up then it would all open out and it would look a lot better when i take that away do you see that's just too much it's just grabbing all the attention this one's a bit crazy but what i do love these big circles against this and i'm and so a couple of things are coming out for me in this what i want to do next in my paintings i'm very interested in exploring circles uh because they keep appearing this you know on certain pages i just keep getting circles circles circles circles circle really um circles little circles and i'm and i really don't know why but i feel like that's one thing i can explore in paintings even that is a warped circle is this idea of this it's a it's this idea of a shape that connects back up with itself um is cropping in a lot so that's the first thing and then the second thing is this idea of big things against smaller things i like this but again it's getting complete it's been competed with oh that's bad english but you know i mean over here with a lot of darks so if i made that lighter this can start to be the stand i might have to really lighten this up as well but big shape against not so big shapes same here big squiggle against not so big squiggles i might get rid of some of these squiggles that's that's too strong to show up but something really light over there some light paint uh just to make that really the star i don't like those big black lines there but that's a separate issue so this is what i do i'm looking like what what's interesting me and what could bring it into my work also i will keep working on these pages like if i look at this one that i didn't like um if i go back to my collage what i'm thinking let's do it that way is i could even layer collage like this to simplify a lot of where where it put that thing that i really didn't like so this is a good thing about collage you can just keep covering over so i could collage that over there and then down here i don't like here it's very messy so what else could i do here i might really lighten this up with paint so that there's room for the darker stuff to shine and then maybe just make this dark so that so i keep working on the sketchbook even though nobody else is not for anybody else i do keep working to perfect it because every time i do this i'm learning what i want to bring into my paintings and that's the value of a sketchbook i think it's it's um i know for some people they work in sketchbooks as beautiful objects and and i like i love looking at these because to me they are beautiful but in my for myself not for other people let's just look at one more so this is a smaller one and it's another concertina actually so i'll get a different one to show you one that's not a concertina but um again and what's happening in this book is a lot of text coming in which i'm interested in so there's bits of text and i really like it when text is taken out of context and becomes like a secret language in a painting a big scribble against things that aren't anything like that i love that page look text out of context i love more text and so in this book what's happening is different things are coming in and this is this interest the circles are still here but this interesting lettering is coming through in here and this one isn't finished so um circles though can you see it because i was working on it before i was all into different kinds of circles that's some black paint scratched into with my nail to make these swirly shapes and then this so it's not really so much circles is it it's it's uh roundness because that's oval but it's this connection going and i'm interested in connection in my work always so it makes sense that i would like these shapes that connect up um circles are there again look but anyway interesting that text is coming in here and so what i'm taking away at the moment is this interest in adding text out of context i don't want things that mean something i don't want a message i want things that make no sense i want big things against small things so bolder compositions than i've been doing in the past and i might want to explore this idea of circles or ovals or shapes that rounded shapes that connect back up with themselves and all that's come out of just having fun by myself playing without any intention of making anything nice but i do really like that page so i really like this page too and this is like a semi-circle isn't it so it's got that shape coming in again and this is again this idea of scratching paint out of a shape i'm really liking that in these sketchbooks so um i've got to be careful though when i go to work on a painting i mustn't get really self-conscious about copying what's here because it'll never work these all happened by building up layers and they happen by accident so it's extracting out the ideas rather than copying the compositions and i promised to show you one that wasn't concertina this is one i'm just working on um and with acrylic paint and gloss medium in any of these kind of sketchbooks pages are going to stick when you open them can you hear that's fine i don't care about that this is a little collage sketchbook and so same i i'm playing with the same kinds of ideas that i'm working with in there but just in a different format here i'm taking bits of collage and these are bits from experiments so i just cut things out of experiments these were ink paintings and then i arranged them and attempt different compositions i don't like them all i don't love that one i really like this one this was some tracing paper that i had painted onto i think that was tracing paper that's tissue paper and then this is um some collage these are collaged on even though they look at bits of an ink experiment i just like that composition and i'm not sure why at the moment but i'm really liking this limited color with black and white so that might be something as well so i could take that into the next painting so circles lettering big shapes again small and minimal palette and then just see where that leads me and the way i would do it is to work on a few paintings at once smallish ones either on paper or on wood panel and then just see what happens so just very quickly want to show you the paintings that be after i filmed that video i did begin to work on paintings using the ideas that came out of the sketchbook and here's where they are currently i really like this one so i'm working with the same palette i'm using the lettering big shapes pattern all the things i liked in the sketchbook found text got a lot of collage in these and i'm just letting the ideas come out and see where they go there's parts of these that i like there's some of these that i that i really do like almost as finished and there's some that still need a lot of work but i work on these all at once and so i'll do a little bit on this one then pull out this one and do something else and then grab this one and maybe take an idea from that like this tissue collaged on tissue paper and use the same collage on tissue paper here or i make that shape and i like it so i add it to this and in that way each one informs the sketchbook informs them and each one informs the others so i'm really excited about where these are going and it's entirely as a result of doing the work in my sketchbook so i hope that was helpful in terms of just understanding what sketchbooks do for me and how i use them if you enjoyed this i make videos like this and teach lessons like this on a regular basis in my artist community your art tribe and you can find a link above or below this video wherever you're watching so do come and check us out we have a free month membership so you'd be very welcome to check us out kick the tires and then leave if it's really not for you with no questions asked but it's a fantastic community and i absolutely love teaching in there so if you would like to get much more stuff like this from me do join if you just want to stick around for the free stuff that's perfectly brilliant just click subscribe if you're on youtube or follow if you're somewhere else so that you will be notified when i post again see you soon bye

Channel: Louise Fletcher Art

Views: 31,107

Rating: 4.9378533 out of 5

Keywords: art, artist advice, artist, painting, painting tips, art tips, art inspiration, abstract painting

Id: Kha7-GPgWok

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021