WELCOME, FRIEND!
Thank you so much for supporting me on Patreon! Your support helps me spend more time focused on improving my art skills and making my best and most authentic work. I really appreciate you.
I made this page as a little Patreon-only hub to get you started quickly on making sketchbook art and to keep your starter rewards all in one place!
Please let me know if you have any questions or requests; I’m happy to help however I can.
10 TIPS FOR STARTING YOUR SKETCHBOOK:
Choose a small sketchbook - one that fits in your hand, pocket, or bag comfortably. This will make filling a page fast and bringing your sketchbook with you easy.
Play in your sketchbook out of order. Just flip to any page and make a mark as fast as you can. You can build from any starting point, and by flipping around out of order, you’ll take the pressure away from that dreaded first page or any blank page for that matter. By doing this, you’ll also create fun art prompts for yourself to finish in a separate sitting. Get stuck on what to add to a page? No worries; just flip to a new one and come back to that page whenever you have an idea for it. I filmed an example of this on TikTok from my last sketchbook - the right side is my first hour of adding splashes of color and breaking in my new sketchbook and the left side is what I ended up making with those pages weeks later.
Approach every page knowing that it’s changeable. It’s paint-over-able. It’s cut-out-able. Nothing is forever unless you want it to be. Don’t fear mistakes; embrace them. Work with them, and make something more interesting by trusting and enjoying the process.
Get messy and weird whenever possible. Cut shapes out of pages to create fun windows and glue things into your sketchbook to add variety to your pages. This step will also help you embrace your own artistic freedom and fight your perfectionist side.
Use the inside of your cover and/or your last page as a testing page for your art supplies. Theoretically the whole book is a testing page, but when you want to test a pen, a color, a color scheme, or just get a few warm up doodles in, flip to over to your testing page and go wild! The photo attached to this post is my first testing page ever, created in the back of my 2018-2019 sketchbook.
Keep your sketchbook and your favorite art supplies wherever you sit down to relax most often. I usually keep my sketchbook on my coffee table in the living room so whenever I’m watching Netflix and feel like doodling, it’s right there in reach from the couch.
Bring it with you if you’re leaving your home too. My sketchbook and my pouch of favorite art supplies fit in my small backpack so it comes with me on all my adventures, everywhere from doctors appointments to vacations and in between.
Have your friends and family join in on the fun. Next time you have your sketchbook and supplies with you around someone you love, have them splash some paint around on a page or draw some wacky lines, then look at what they’ve made as if you’re cloud gazing and try to find an image within it. Next, enhance what you see by drawing and painting on the same page. You can go back and forth as many times as you like with your friend. This always results in both a new fun collaborative artwork and a good time.
Seek out inspiration regularly and save it somewhere you can access it easily when you’re looking for ideas of what to draw or paint. I use Pinterest boards and saved posts on Instagram/Facebook for my personal inspirational storage. Sometimes when I sit down to my sketchbook and I’m unsure of what to make, I‘ll give myself 5 or 10 minutes to scroll through one of those sources, pulling a color scheme or art technique from one of the posts I’ve saved and a concept or reference photo from another, and then I combine them into something new in my own sketchbook.
Celebrate Sketchbook Sundays as often as possible! It’s up to you to set your own goals and pace, but personally I like to schedule some time every Sunday to play in my sketchbook. Sometimes I play in it throughout the week and then try to complete one of those pages on Sunday. I’m not perfect. I don’t finish a page every Sunday, but those Sundays that I do, I feel so great to not only have completed a task and feel a sense of accomplishment for the day but also because I treated myself to some creative time. Being creative and playful can really boost your mood, and at the very least, it’ll keep you from scrolling through social media for a little while.
20 PRINTABLE SKETCHBOOK SCANS:
These are some of my favorite sketchbook pages. I scanned them so you could enjoy them too! Feel free to use these art scans as phones / desktop backgrounds or print them out as postcards or even hang them in frames and make a mini art wall. Whatever makes you happiest!
Please also note that these images are exclusively for your personal use only and not for resale.
30 SKETCHBOOK IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED
ELIMINATE WHITE PAGES QUICKLY WITH THESE COLORFUL ACTIVITIES
Take a pen that is your favorite color, and then scribble and doodle lines all across a two-page however your hand in whatever ways feel best until the two-page spread is completely filled.
Pick any color plus its opposite on a color wheel. This can be purple/yellow, red/green, or blue/orange. Think of something you associate with one of the colors and draw/paint it that with the color and use its opposite as the background. For example, you could draw a yellow sunflower and then use purple as the background. This is a complementary color scheme.
Pick any color plus the two colors next to it on a color wheel or rainbow. Now, create a gradient that spans the entire page. To do this, start at one edge or corner and use your colors in order. Blend or layer colors when they touch each other. This is an analogous color scheme.
Paint a cloud while looking at it. Focus on the colors in both the highlights and shadows as they are, and paint them in those true colors.
Steal from what you love. Look at photos of something you love - flowers, animals, art, tattoos, fashion, dyed hair, movie posters, album covers, whatever, and then steal a color scheme you like and use those colors to fill up a page or a full spread.
Fill a page with colorful blobs. As many colors and as weirdly shaped as you like. Bonus points: If you like to draw or doodle, you can add faces or turn the blobs into creatures or objects.
Close your eyes or dim your lights, and pick up an art supply at random. Then with your eyes open, draw one continuous line without picking it up off the paper. Whenever you want to stop with that color, repeat the process again until the page is full. You can also choose a new type of motion like dots or shapes or whatever you like with each color.
Create a Zentangle. Pick up your favorite pen and slowly pull it across a page, move it around however feels best (zig zags, scribbles, squiggles, swirls, whatever you want) and just see how long you can draw a continuous line without lifting your pen off the paper. Repeat until the page is filled with lines. Then, color inside of the shapes you’ve just created. This activity is soothing and especially great for anxiety relief so try it out when you're trying to relax, like before bed.
IDEAS FOR PLAYING WITH LINE IN YOUR SKETCHBOOK
Create a gesture drawing. This is almost the exact opposite of a Zentangle, instead of slow movements, you make quick ones, and instead of abstract lines, you use lines to describe what you're looking at. Gestures imply action and movement, and it’s an especially great activity for practicing poses and proportions in figure drawing. To do this, start by finding a reference image of a person or animal in motion, then use quick, messy pencil or charcoal strokes to capture the scene.
Stare at a model, photo, or object, as you move your eyes slowly around the edges of what you’re looking at, simultaneously draw the contour/outline continuously without lifting your pen or looking at your paper. Fill your page with these! This activity is called blind contour drawing, and it will help you coordinate what you’re drawing with what you’re seeing.
Choose a reference image of something you love, like your favorite flower or animal. Then concentrate on the edges of your subject and using a fairly continuous line, draw the edges and surface detail of the subject being drawn to the best of your ability. This is a contour drawing exercise and great practice for observational drawings.
Add to your contour line by using parallel lines (hatching) or crossing parallel lines (cross-hatching) to create changes in value and texture. Tip: there are 3 ways to change value with line when using a pen: 1) vary the space between the lines 2) vary the thickness of the lines 3) vary the pressure applied to your pen. Try out each one and see which strategy you prefer or use them all in one if you like.
ACTIVITIES FOR EXPLORING SHAPE IN YOUR ART
Fill a page with flowers, as many as you can fit. Make the flowers as simple or as complicated as you want to. This is another version of a Zentangle that focuses on shapes instead of lines. Level up this practice by looking at real flowers or photos of flowers while you doodle.
Choose a photo of an organic shape like a flower, tree, or face and recreate it using only geometric shapes like circles, triangles, and squares. Pay special attention to the surface of the subject and try to find the triangles shapes within it.
Drawing with scissors - This is an activity inspired by Henri Matisse. Either use construction paper, pages from a magazine, or paint paper the color you want it to be, and then using scissors, cut out organic and geometric shapes from the paper. Next, arrange them in your sketchbook in a way that is pleasing to your eye. Rotate and experiment with them. When you are satisfied with the design, glue the shapes in place in your sketchbook. Don't forget to let them dry fully before closing your sketchbook or moving on to a new page or else, haha. ;)
Cut rectangles and silhouettes of people, animals, or flowers out of different pages in your sketchbook. These will create windows into other pages and allow you to play with whatever peeks through onto your next page. Here's an example of this in my 2020 sketchbook.
Draw the negative space around an object. By doing this, you will improve your ability to draw by removing your assumptions about what your subject looks like and replacing that with what you’re truly seeing.
IDEAS FOR ADDING TEXTURE TO YOUR SKETCHBOOK
Add actual texture to your sketchbook by using thick paint, sand, salt, fabric, paper, molding paste, etc. on your pages. In the above example, smooth acrylic paint is my actual texture.
Add implied texture (the illusion of actual texture) by using a reference image of the texture you’d like to recreate and draw what you see. Rough textures intercept light rays producing a variety of lights and darks, while smooth textures distribute light evenly. You can see the implied smooth texture of the rocks in this example sketchbook spread. In this example, the rocks show implied smooth texture.
Create abstracted texture by simplifying what a texture looks like into its most basic doodle form. It usually hints upon the texture’s appearance but focuses more on pattern than perfection. An example of this is how I drew the texture of the trees in the attached sketchbook pages.
Doodle your heart out to create beautiful invented textures like the one in the above background. Invented texture is non-objective, decorative patterns created by the imagination of the artist.
SOME ART THERAPY ACTIVITIES FOR WHEN YOU WANT TO FEEL YOUR FEELINGS
Document your gratitude visually. What things are you grateful for in your life? Draw, paint, or collage a work that represents these things.
Draw a loss in your life. If you’ve lost someone you love, draw a portrait of them.
Draw and then color in your own mandala. To do this, start at the center of your page and then draw concentric circles getting bigger as you approach the edges of the page. Then, fill each circle with intricate patterns and repeating symbols. Once you’ve finished, go back and color it in.
Draw an important childhood memory. For this activity, choose an early childhood memory and draw it in your sketchbook. Reflect on how this memory shaped who you are today.
Draw your dreams. Keep a notebook or your sketchbook by your bed and journal about your dreams as soon as you wake up from them. Once you have a dream that you think could be a visually interesting artwork, use it as inspiration to draw or paint in your sketchbook.
Draw or paint to music. Pick a song that you can relate to emotionally and put it on repeat while you try to represent the song visually in your sketchbook.
Finger paint an abstract artwork. Finger painting isn’t just fun for kids - adults can enjoy it as well. Get your hands messy and really have fun spreading paint around. Tap into your inner child and set them free with this activity. Make a fun abstract work with your favorite colors and your fingers, no brush needed.
Pick any emotion and think about how you can use space to illustrate that feeling. As an example, loneliness would have a large amount of space with a single small subject whereas overwhelm might have very little negative space and more subjects.
And my favorite activity suggestions of all… Take yourself out on an art date! Pack a bag with some water, snacks, your sketchbook, and a few of your favorite art supplies. Then find a comfy spot outside for sketching. Lie down, relax, and begin noticing the shapes and forms of nature around you. What colors can you see in the shadows or highlights? What color is the sky behind them? You can also snap a few photos to reference later if you want to. Then, start drawing or painting the environment around you just as you see it!
CHECK OUT MY PINTEREST PAGE FOR EVEN MORE REALTIME ART INSPIRATION:
I love Pinterest, and I am constantly pinning art, sketchbook pages, color schemes, beautiful locations, animals, tattoos, illustrations, and absolutely everything that’s inspiring me and my art in real time. Regardless if you have a Pinterest account or not, check mine out @ashleymbaldwin for thousands of art ideas being updated all the time. Maybe it’ll even inspire you to pull out your sketchbook and doodle in it!
All in all, I hope whenever you pick up your sketchbook, you feel inspired and free to express yourself without worrying about what the page will look like at the end. If you're enjoying the process and consistently playing in your sketchbook, your art will naturally improve over time. I promise.
In the meantime, I love hearing from you so please message me any time and send me photos of your sketchbook too! I can’t wait to see what you make.
Happy sketching! <3