1st year sketchbooks

Throughout my time at university it was vital as part of our course to keep a sketchbook. Initially this was quite exciting to me as I've never had to record anything in a sketchbook before, the idea of owning a sketchbook and having to document in it throughout the course was quite intimidating to me because I like to plan things out strategically, opposed to just chucking things in random. We were advised to put everything in our sketchbook and not to necessarily worry about presentation as long as it was clear on what our thought process was, as well putting things we had learnt from seminars and lectures. 

Like I said I like to plan strategically and to be organized, so when we were told to go for it and not worry about presentation it kind of put me on edge. Although I did try and be creative and not worry about layout it frustrated me having pages that didn't best visualize my creativity, to where it almost embarrassed me to show other people my sketchbook. I've always been a perfectionist in terms of how things look visually, and although this isn't necessarily a bad thing it actually can get in the way of being up to date with work; since i'm too concerned on making things look visually pleasing. 

During the first year of University, I've managed to complete four sketchbooks looking back my style has changed massively. My first sketchbook was probably the worst, since It look me quite a while to stay focused and actually produce content. I almost saw keeping a sketchbook like a chore, but looking back it's been quite beneficial in terms of looking back on how my work has progressed and what type of topics I found interesting. It's also clear that I lack interest in annotation and focus much more on how the pictures look on the page. Although I do annotate with the best of my ability I do find that I'm just describing the image opposed to sharing my views and why I put it in my sketchbook; which is something I definitely need to work on. 

Having the opportunity of being able to keep a record of things from the course / my own interests has been a learning lesson. It's made it very clear that I'm more for the visuals opposed to annotation, and although I want to embrace this I hope that I can become more confident in terms of annotating more in depth. Without denying it, presentation will always be KEY to me and I'm probably always going to be sticking my images on to black card and then cutting them back out again to stick into my sketchbook, although tedious I guess that's what makes my sketchbook my own. I'm looking forward in my second year to be able to be more creative and of course produce so much more content, and possibly own more than four sketchbook; and start using my sketchbook outside of Uni. Being opened to the wonderful world of sketch-booking it's definitely made me comfortable to just dive in and document things I'm interested in.  

- Chrissy X