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After another break I’m happy to get these two great HOT SHOTS to inspire your sketching!! Before I get going I’ll just love to say my exhibition of paintings and drawings of York is currently on at The Kentmere House Gallery, York. I also have an article in The Artist Magazine (December Issue) titled, “Sketching a Passion”- in the article I explain how I transform my sketches from black and white to colour. Do get a copy if you can, it’s a good read…..I’ll be sharing some of the tips in it later on this blog.

If you missed my last post which was way back in August, please click HERE

HOT SHOT 17

SKETCHING WITH NO HEAVY EXPECTATION ON YOURSELF

 Always remember its a sketch, and this takes off the burden of making it overworked or tailored to a certain standard or another persons expectations. This is why seeing with sketch-eyes helps you to keep working with no heavy expectation on yourself but at the same time, it will keep you in a ready anticipation to keep sketching without discouragement.

 This is not a demonstration video but a pure pep talk on sketching with no heavy expectation on yourself.

I cannot emphasize how important it is not to put any heavy expectation on yourself while you go about sketching.

A lot of artists, both amateurs and professionals always have a great fear about what others feel or think about what they do.

Even though this is a good thing to have, if it motivates you to perform higher than your normal standard but it’s no good if it stops you from sketching! The fact that it’s a sketch makes it an act that should not come with any pressure at all.

 

Once I start sketching and I loose my freedom of just enjoying the journey of traveling with my pen marks along the pages of my sketchbook…..and it turns out that I begin to worry about what people would be thinking about the journey I am taking, then I loose every bit of fun and excitement that comes from sketching!

The whole experience of sketching is supposed to be a joyous one, one of discovery, one where the sketcher records everything that excites them. It would then be terrible if I allow my fears to steal the joy. So just get out there and do it!

Below are some sketches from way back in 2004/2005 when I just started seriously sketching the tube. They may not be that good but what if I stopped because they weren’t that convincing at that time,  I would have been a great loser! That’s why I encourage anyone out there to just get on  with it!

HOT SHOT 18

SET A DEADLINE WITH YOUR SKETCHBOOK

Nowadays from my visits to secondary schools, I have noticed that sketchbooks are filled up more with cuttings from magazines, papers, digital images off the Internet and a lot of writing and very little things they have gathered by drawing themselves. This is why I think there’s a kind of decline in the students interest and ability to sketch efficiently at that level. I think there should be sketch pads filled up from cover to cover, solely on what the student sees and needs to understand and discover around them. So I’ll say give yourself a kind of deadline to finish a particular sketchbook in a month or get one of those trendy ones that have a page per day in the year, this kind of forces you to keep and it and to finish it and move on to something else.

“Deadlines are not guidelines”- I think I read that in a book on Home Remedies. The authors of that book were trying to make a certain personality to be careful about how treat deadlines. I must confess, I’m not that brilliant with deadlines!

I think deadlines are great, they help us know how long we have to spend on a particular project and how to pace and organize a strategy to meet or beat that deadline!

Deadlines have helped me in the past and I think they can be very helpful with maintaining our enthusiastic attitude in filling up our sketchbooks.

Just be honest, set a date you think you can keep to. I seen some people work on a sketch a day…some have worked on a project of 100 sketches in 100 days….but just do whatever works for you. It’s all to inspire you to keep sketching. I believe if you pick up a sketchbook and write on the page that’s it off, that you plan to keep this sketchbook for only 1 month or 2 months. Each time you see that it will inspire you to keep  to your personal promise.

Below is a video of my most recent sketchbook, as I am writing I haven’t kept to my deadline of starting on September the 21st and finishing on November the 21st, but I am almost there….I expect to fill it up tonight on my way home and then I’ll be adding it to this post ready for sharing very soon!


And if anyone, school, college,  museum, art lover, art society……. is interested in owning this sketchbook (above)-it’s a treasure, just send me an email with an offer, I promise I will take the best offer and  will accept payments with PayPal. The offers end 24 hours after this post is published! I will announce the winner. This is a rare opportunity to own the original sketches in one priceless book, it’s a Christmas giveaway! And even if you don’t win, the video is enough inspire anyone out there who really wants to give this sketching thing a go!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALEX RAGALIE FOR WINNING THE SKETCHBOOK ABOVE, HOPE IT INSPIRES YOU TO KEEP SKETCHING!

Lets just keep sketching, and sketching and sketching…until our drawing skills become sharper and more accurate…we can’t get enough of SKETCHING!!

Please share this post with anyone you think would be interested! Like it, tweet it! Lets share this sketching spirit on and on and on!!!!

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Filed under: Inspiration to sketch • Sketchbook

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