When wishing to practice your sketching or painting, have you ever been intimidated by a blank piece of watercolor paper or a blank sketchbook page staring you in the face? Ever wished there was a way to practice drawing without intimidation? Here's a technique to get you past that feeling...
I first ran across this great idea in Martha's superb sketch 'zine Trumpetvine Travels Volume 1 which featured an article titled "Drawing Practice Book" about using a small book as a sketchbook in which to practice.
The idea here is basic: improving your drawing skills means drawing regularly, and by using an old book in which to draw, there's no hesitation to get started and no expectations for the outcome.
If you'd like to try this, it doesn't have to be expensive; I bought my book at a garage sale for 25 cents! The downside--it had a lot of pictures in it and not much text... Martha suggests that you look for an old hardbound book that's "not too big to carry with you, feels good in the hand, and opens fairly flat."
I used this technique back in 2004, and thought I would post a few of my results. I haven't seen many images of this type of work on the web, so I'm interested if this technique has helped you personally... leave a comment if you wish! I'd love to see other examples of this.
