Art Lesson #15: New year, new sketchbooks!

Reviews of great sketchbooks to start the year, and what to do with them

If you travel in the same social media circles I do, it might seem like every artist on the planet is starting a thirty-day sketchbook challenge for January.

I’m not.

I’m not a fan of challenges, or boot camps, or prolonged intensive anythings. I don’t mind a vague ambition at the beginning of the year, a general feeling of joie de vivre when one’s mind drifts in the direction of some particular new activity.

I like a bright shiny new object. I particularly like a bright shiny new sketchbook. But I don’t think you need a program to start one.

If you’re thinking of getting more into drawing or painting or journaling (or some combination of all those) in the new year, I’d suggest this:

1. Buy a wonderful new sketchbook.

2. Pick a thing to draw

3. Draw that thing until the sketchbook is full.

Doesn’t matter how long it takes. Doesn’t matter how often you draw. Doesn’t matter if you have other sketchbooks on the go at the same time, where you draw other things. Just start a new one, with the ambition of…