Sketchbook 3: HOW TO SKETCH?

Sketchbook is a diary, but instead of writing, you fill it up with drawings using a pen, just like the written diary. But although I would say that pen is the easiest medium to start with, the preference is entirely up to each individual. You could use pencil or paint with brush too, in a sketch form.

Works or drawings in sketchbook are a record of one's own interest, not in any way  a piece of art work in the common sense. However, sketches possess all quality and prospect of good work of art. A good piece of sketch can be successfully done by a child, a beginner, an artist or someone with twenty years of sketching experience, just like a piece of good art work. Not by chance but firstly with purpose and intention, a sketchbook keeper would gain and develop his or her own skill, experience, style and point of view to became an artist on its own merit,

Each person has his or her own way to draw lines hence own style and line character.

Start your first sketchbook with drawings of subject you are familiar with. As an architect, my first few sketchbooks were all about buildings, what I feel comfortable with. But they were different type of drawings I had been doing nearly all my life. I see the buildings in a different way. There’s no pressure or expectation of the drawings, or the buildings, in any particular way or purpose; I just record them the way I see and feel about it. It is, in a way, a work of feeling rather than knowing or intention. And what’s more? Sketching allow me to observe and learn about the subject in a new light and in the way that the experience stays with me for a long time.

Subject that is familiar yet stir your curiosity like a tuk-tuk coffee shop or futuristic cabin seats.

Subjects for sketchbooks are limitless and this freedom of choice may not work with everyone. So, the most practical way is just simply pick up anything that first comes to your mind, be it about cars, pets, garden, music or coffee table, anything. You will find new and more subjects soon enough after the first sketch or even half way through it! And that’s perfectly alright. There’s no hard and fast rule on sketching, that’s why you would want to do sketching at the first place any way. No rule, no pressure, no worries no frustration; it’s purely for fun, joy, relax and to satisfy one’s curiosity and interest.

If you feel that it is more fun to sketch at another place rather than your own living room then try a nearby coffee shop, at Starbucks or in a park. Another good thing about sketching is that it is convenient and unobtrusive. An A5 sketchbook can go anywhere without drawing anyone’s attention.

Look around down, relax, start with something simple that first come to your mind.

Start your sketch only after you have decided what you want to sketch and decide what you want to sketch after you have look around and settled yourself in comfortably. I did the sketch of a Bangkok’s vegetarian restaurant above while waiting for our orders and started with the map at top of the page only. The rest of the sketch was done after the meals while having dessert and coffee starting with those rows glass covers on the long counters; that's where my cake come from! Then the sketch moved along to cover the unusual round lanterns hanging all over the dining area.

After finding what you want to sketch, start to draw the most prominent shape of the subject and expand from there. Try to draw and then stick to what you think it WOULD look like instead of trying to copy what you see in front of you. Then fill in only some features of the subject instead of the subject's details.
That's the idea and how I do my sketches.

The image of the shrine It is all impression, not the details.

This description may sound philosophical but it is in fact very natural and easy to put into action. One may not fully realise while doing it but it is clear once it is done.