Sketchbooks on the bookshelf

For the last few years, I have been doing what I can to get into habit of sketching more often. And if you look at the photo above, you’ll see how many sketchbooks I’ve been able to fill up over this time. Before I really began sketching in earnest, I had a few sketchbooks (you can see the ones that were much further into the past), but they would only get opened every six months or so, and then only for a sketch or two.

I’m still not sketching on a daily basis, but I’ve been able to pull out a sketchbook for some doodling almost at least once a week. For the last two years, I have participated in the “Every Day in May” and Inktober challenges. They have been a great way to force myself to stick to some regular sketching. You can see the results from Every Day in May 2015 & 2016, and my Inktober sketches from 2016 up on Flickr.

When there aren’t any ongoing challenges, it is a bit harder to keep up with sketching, but it’s something that’s almost always on my mind. And even if it isn’t an every day habit, I do enjoy the practice very much - which I’ll probably get into more over the next few months. If you’d like to follow along, I’ve been using both my Flickr and Instagram accounts to upload my sketches and paintings.