Intro

This is my first sketchbook that I filled out from Feb of 2024 to Feb 2025.

For context, I started drawing digitally with my wacom tablet from 2021-22 for CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service in the IB (International Baccalaureate)). In 2023, however, I dropped it only producing 1 painting at a social event for the entire year. Sometimes I would watch an art tutorial on YouTube thinking I could get better by osmosis and not actually picking up the pen myself. Enter the beginning of 2024;

My sister was moving places and so when I went to help, I grabbed some stuff she was going to throw out which happened to include some sketching pencils and one of those free notebooks you get at career fairs. As I did all my uni work on my laptop, I had no need for this notebook. But with some inspiration from Pewidipie, I thought I would try picking up drawing again but traditionally this time.

The Actual Drawing part

You can find the actual contents of the sketchbook on my YouTube channel linked below.

I mainly focus on drawing characters in an anime style that is very inconsistent. Though landscapes, backgrounds, food art and the like seem cool, they pale in comparison to the fun of drawing ‘humans’. People come in all different shapes and sizes with various emotions in a way that sets them apart from the rest of creation. Although realism also seems bad ass, growing up watching anime pulls me towards that direction of stylization. I think it would bring levels to my current skill to learn realism but it does also seem very scary and if I wanted it I would’ve just picked up photography.

The lines that I produce are also not very clean or confident. Sometimes I will try to scratch my way into line art while at other times, parts of the page I’ve erased several times start sullying the work. Maybe I should put a greater emphasis on clean strong lines in the future but I know that I am also a sucker for rough sketches so who knows.

While I think I kind of have a grasp of the front view, driver’s licence kind of photo, for the face, whenever I try to move it any other angle, the correctness of the drawings seem to fall apart. The eyes won’t be aligned, the head won’t connect to the body correctly, the ear will be in the wrong position and the list goes on and on. This puts me in a pickle as drawing the head from non straight angles is so much cooler and dynamic but I also suck at it.

Reflections

When I first started drawing, it was my belief that if I just spent more time on a piece of art, the better it would be. Though this isn’t necessarily wrong, it did put me in a bad head space. The blank Krita canvas on my laptop screen become more and more daunting as I knew trying to fully render something would require oceans of Ctrl+Z’s and hours spent fussing over small details while zoomed in to microscopic levels to produce something that I mightn’t even like. So, I dropped it all together until a light in the distance dawn; my first sketchbook.

With time, I came to realise that being a good artist wasn’t about how steady your hands were but rather how well your eyes could tell how something should be drawn. Additionally, drawing traditionally forced me to stop pressing Ctrl+Z, prevented me from zooming in to focus on details no one would notice and brought joy back into the process. I also became more confident with my strokes allowing me to draw faster which also translated back to the digital canvas (especially when only using a pen). The quicker I was able to produce pieces, the more motivated I was to draw because I knew I wouldn’t fall into the sunk-cost fallacy.

The sketchbook saved me from not thinking about art ever again.

Drawing is gambling

My family used to be rich. We had a beautiful mansion with a Chinese garden spanning more than 15 hectares (allegedly). Though my grandpa was born in this lucious estate, my great grandma loved to gamble so much so that we lost everything. So, I vowed to not ever gamble knowing that in my blood runs the potential to lose generational wealth.

But there is an exception to this rule; art. Over time, I came to the realisation that the production of art was a gamble with quality. Sometimes a sketch could look amazing but be ruined with the lineart while other times I would only later realise that the anatomy was off. By drawing with a pen or being unbothered to erase too much, I was forced to just move on from a bad drawing pretty quickly.

What this means is that when I would produce absolutely horrendous sketches, I wouldn’t need to fuss over trying to salvage the piece, I could just ‘roll’ again. This helped motivate me to keep drawing however, when you’re on a terrible run what can you do?

The obvious answer is to study, however, studying doesn’t mean that you will only have insane luck with your work but that your baseline worse art isn’t as bad. This can be demoralising but with enough drawings that you aren’t proud of, I feel like it may be the only way forward that isn’t quitting.

Motivation to draw

For some reason my motivation to draw increases as assignment deadlines approach; there is a strong positive correlation between drawing motivation and the number of assignment deadlines.

Although this graph does show my desire to draw relative to the due date of assignments, why does the motivation drop off right before? Well, the gap represents a change in my mind as I realise how cooked I am for the upcoming assignment and actually start working on it.

Though this graph accurately represents my mind during the school term, as in the back of my mind I believe I should be using all my free time applying for jobs, leetcoding and doing uni work, my mindset during the school holidays changes quite significantly. There is no guilt to draw and it feels like the first sip of a cold pepsi.

Studying / Drawing for fun

In pursuit of greatness in a lot of human endeavours, one must strike a healthy balance between enjoyment and absolutely locking in. Let’s say you want to become a cracked tetris player. You enjoy playing 1v1’s however, you have plateaued in skill. In order to improve, you may need to analyze your previous games, do some conditioning like slow cheese race or other kinds of practice however, the practice tastes like cardboard and brings no immediate joy. So you choose to do a balance of practicing and playing in order to not burn out and quit from only trying to improve and also to move past your plateaued state so you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work.

I believe this same approach can be taken to art though finding that balance between practicing and drawing for fun will be different for everyone. For this sketchbook, I was cranking up the drawing purely for enjoyment to the max while neglecting any practice. I was led purely but my animal instinct of ‘I wanna this’. Despite this, I was still able to improve a little bit which was nice to see.

Though I feel like I don’t really wanna study something like the hands right now, I can also envision a future where my hard work pays off and I really enjoy drawing them. Maybe I should lock in and buy an anatomy book?

I’ve kinda villainized practice without actually practicing LMAO. As with uni, I will procrastinate doing assignments but once I start actually working on them, I regularly come to the realisation that I actually enjoy it. Well, as they say, ‘once you’ve started, you’ve done half the work’. Possibly with my next sketchbook you’ll find some practice.

Conclusion

Yeah nah sketchbooks are awesome, liberating and fun. To me they are a place to experiment, get creative and produce bad drawings. I’ve seen some other people’s sketchbooks where they tape / glue things into it. I didn’t even know you could do that. Thats pretty lit and I reckon I’ll give it a try.

I’ve also found Andrew Loomis’ ‘The Head and Hands’ 1956 online for free so I guess I’ll have a sus of that as well.