Dougie with his faithful companion, Leah

MORE ABOUT SKETCHBOOKS, BUT THIS TIME, SAME SIZE

By Dougie Chowns

My sketches from Mastermind

So that you may better appreciate sketchbook sketches I am devoting this issue to actual size sketches as if you are flicking open a double page spread yourself. 

In fact I usually try to draw on the right hand leaf, which avoids see-through or ink seepage. I have asked for this because when an illustration is reproduced smaller than it actually is, the drawing tightens up. We always drew finished artwork for reproduction ‘twice up’ to improve reproduction. Overleaf, my sketches from the Prado in Madrid Spain are the same size as in my sketchbook.

Years ago, I asked my life class students to draw the contestants of Mastermind each week as an ‘at home exercise’, one in which I also partook. Sitting still for 60 seconds in big, close up, they make good models, although it frustrated students. After a few weeks their observation and drawing improved markedly, and it was fun to compare with each other.  You should have a go yourself!

Sketchbooks are notebooks and never intended to be show pieces – they show us more about the way we think, the things we especially notice so that we can come back to a memorable image. I tend to scribble rather than write carefully. Consequently, like the sketches, my hand does not keep up with my head – but that’s OK.

At an art meeting last month, I backed a work to show and talk about with my sketchbook drawings. Interestingly, the art group were more interested in flicking through the pages of my sketchbook than what I had offered up for discussion. Other people’s sketchbooks always look better than our own, but I think that is rather more to do with learning by watching an artist at work – that ‘visual demonstration’ that is so important.