An ever-growing stack of sketchbooks marks the growth of my art practice. These days I fill a sketchbook every month or two, often bouncing around between different sketchbooks so it sometimes feels like I’m always finishing one sketchbook and beginning another one.

Five years ago, I would struggle to fill up one sketchbook a year unless it was for my work as a children’s book illustrator. Before that I would never fill up a sketchbook. Especially early on in my art practice, I’d start a new sketchbook with the best intentions and almost immediately feel frustrated by my lack of skill, by my inability to draw the things I imagined.

I wish I could tell my younger self that it’s ok to make mistakes in sketchbooks, that there are no mistakes in a sketchbook, because every “mistake” is a chance to learn, and that you can only become the artist you want to be by making more art.

That’s right, friend. If you want to get better at art you’ve got to *gasp* make more art!

It’s so obvious now but back then I sort of wanted to think my way into being a better artist and…well…that just doesn’t work. Art is a hands-on activity.

How to Fill Your First Sketchbook

Yeah it is easy for me to sit here, years into my sketchbook practice, advising you to start a sketchbook practice too! But I remember how it felt to studiously avoid my sketchbook and then feel the self-imposed shame of never filling up a sketchbook. Here’s the big thing I learned between those sketchbook avoidant days and today: once you fill up your first sketchbook, it gets easier.

So how DO you fill up your first sketchbook?

By setting some parameters and building a habit.

For your sketchbook practice, parameters are limitations and I know that might induce panic at first but take it from me, a pro artist with 15 years of experience, limitations are your friends.

Limitations provide focus in your sketchbook practice. Focus means less overwhelm and “oh my god what should I draw!” And that means one sketchbook full of drawings and paintings and illustrations followed by an easier path to filling up your next sketchbook and your next and your next…

Examples of parameters for your first sketchbook:

Focus on using only one material, like pencils or markers or gouache
Time your sketchbook sessions
Use a limited color palette (for the entire sketchbook or for a specific time period like one week)
Focus on a specific subject matter, like birds or people or buildings or nature
Focus on improving a specific skill, like drawing backgrounds or hand lettering
Choose an aspect of art to focus on, like line or texture or color

Keep your parameters simple and make sure they feel exciting or interesting to you, otherwise you won’t feel enticed to show up for your sketchbook practice.

The next step in filling up your first sketchbook is building a habit. A habit is a behavior that is automatic and that starts with little conscious awareness. Think about your morning routine. How much of it happens on auto pilot?

That’s what you’re aiming for with your sketchbook practice, a routine that you’ll begin instinctually.

Being consistent is the best way to build a habit. For your sketchbook practice, it helps to set aside the same block of time every day. Choose your sketching time block and treat it like a standing appointment on your calendar.

I’ve also found it helpful to set a short time limit on your sketchbooking sessions, like 15 minutes, because it’s so much easier to get started when a task doesn’t feel infinite. Often, I’ll find that I happily keep sketching and drawing and painting past the 15 minutes. It’s the getting start that feels like a mountain to be scaled. Once you’re over that peak, it’s an easy walk into the creative valley.

What parameters will you set for your first sketchbook? What time will you be sketching every day? And what’s your time limit?

Now go forth and sketchbook, artist!

Your Keeping-Going Sketchbook Strategy

Your first sketchbook will be the toughest sketchbook to fill but along the way you’ll learn more about yourself as an artist and more about how you naturally approach your sketchbook practice. There are no wrong answers in art so whatever gets you to pick up your sketchbook every day is the thing you should continue with.

Once your first sketchbook is filled, take a jaunt back through the pages and make note of processes you enjoyed, end results you dig, and processes or results you’d rather not repeat. That’s the basis of your strategy for your next sketchbook. Take what you like and leave the rest behind.

For your next sketchbook, change up your parameters or keep the same parameters if that feels good to you because you’re the boss of your art practice, friend.

Each time you finish a sketchbook, make note of the good stuff and the meh stuff so you can carry what you’ve learned into your next sketchbook and your general art practice.

Change your parameters as wanted or needed and keep on sketching.

Materials Recommendations

Use whatever you love or are curious about in your sketchbook practice.

Start with what you’ve got on hand, including that precious sketchbook that’s been sitting on a shelf for years. Add a few new materials here and there as something sparks curiosity. Know that you don’t need All The Art Materials to be a good artist.

For the curious these are my favorite sketchbooking materials:

Favorite sketchbook: Art Creations Sketchbooks from Royal Talens because the colors are lovely and the paper is just sturdy enough to handle a smidge of water and lots of layering!
Favorite markers: Ecoline brush pens because they are vibrant and blend with water, giving lots of soft watercolor effects without having to do the whole watercolor painting production
Favorite colored pencils: Caran d’Ache Luminance colored pencils because they are buttery soft and heavily pigmented. The Payne’s Grey is my forever favorite pencil!
Favorite paint: Holbein gouache tubes because they are friendly on almost any surface and because I lack the patience for watercolors 😂
Favorite mixed media materials: Caran d’Ache Neocolor II pastels because they are water soluble and can be used in so many different ways, and Derwent Inktense pencils and blocks because they are vibrant and textured too.