-
A page from one of Mr. Goldstein's sketchbooks.
One way to be creative is to start keeping a sketchbook.
You can get either a soft-bound or hardcover sketchbook from the local stationery or craft stores, or you can use a regular-lined composition or spiral notebook as your sketchbook. The important thing is to use it regularly.
Some people think you either can draw or you can’t. Not true. You can learn to draw. First, go easy. Start doodling in your sketchbook and create designs you like. Next, look at drawings you like by other artists and see how they do it. There are many good how-to-draw books in the media center or the local library. Every great artist developed their art by first looking at how other artists did their art. First they copied, then they gradually invented their own way of drawing.
By following the process of constructing a drawing, you increase your knowledge base of what you are able to do. When you draw something that you couldn’t draw before, you get an immense amount of creative satisfaction. You increase your talents.
Why sketch? Because it makes you alive to everything. You see the world in a new way. Everything becomes fresh and interesting and raw material to use for your art. Art intensifies your experience of life.
For writers, the equivalent of the sketchbook is the writer’s notebook. A notebook can be a composition book where you are free to conduct experiments with your writing, or you can keep a writer’s notebook on a computer. If you know keyboarding, you can let your thoughts flow through your fingers as they tapdance upon the keyboard and form words on the computer screen.
Yearbook students: We have been keeping a form of sketchbook that I have called a design journal. Some of you have been sketching, some of you have been writing. Please take 12 photos of your best sketchbook pages; we will post them up on the blog.
Tell what you liked about keeping your sketchbook.
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
Entries (RSS)