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Inventive, creative sketchbooks? Look no further... - The Open College of the Arts

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Inventive, creative sketchbooks? Look no further…

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
 

Here is a glimpse into some of the most inventive and creative sketchbooks you may have seen: by second level OCA student Sandra Kendall. OCA tutor and assessor Emma Drye reports.


Posted by author: Jane Parry

13 thoughts on “Inventive, creative sketchbooks? Look no further…

  • Thank you so much for showing us this! Emma’s comments about the work make the whole thing make so much sense – what an intensive mini-lesson on sketchbook work! I’ve learnt lots.

  • Well done Sandra I am so glad that your sketchbooks have been singled out for their good practice. It was a pleasure to work with you.
    Richard Liley

    • Thanks for helping me Richard
      This really feels like a validation, I was working away thinking are all these ideas valid or slightly unhinged! maybe they are but I know I’m on the right path now.

  • Emma, I hope lots of students watch this video. You make a really good point about the sketchbook allowing work to develop that couldn’t just be made out of thin air. Quite a lot of students are a bit resistant to sketching and preparing and prefer just to launch in to a piece and let it develop. The problem with this approach is that things can become predictable and overworked. Of course, it would be tedious to copy a sketch in its entirety and I think this is why students often resent having to sketch something first. They know they will become bored reproducing it larger. This video and your comments point out that a sketchbook is far more than a preparation ground. It is a repository for ideas, a work out for the creative mind, a testing ground for techniques and materials, a resource book and many other things besides.

    • Olivia that was me stubbornly resisting preparatory work, I’ve always used sketchbooks to draw but not plan and invent, this degree path has taught me otherwise, I now have more focus and direction through working in this manner and ideas are everywhere! I can’t keep up with them!

  • Very inspiring and informative. Not being a confident drawer or sketcher – it would be interesting to see sketchbooks that are considered to be ‘middle of the road’.

  • This is why I want to study with the OCA…to learn how to speak such a visual language, have a portal for all the ideas in my head, to make such a beautiful,fluent and useful work of art within itself.

  • As a new Painting 1 Practice of painting student I found ‘Inventive, creative sketchbooks’ inspirational. I have been of the habit of jumping right in to a piece of work and wondering about a bit trying to grasp the idea that I know was there, until usually something reasonably satisfying (to me) appears. The discipline and fun of sketchbooks has eluded me up till now, but I now see the wonderful potential of record keeping from the germ of something, through sparking activity to satisfying output. Thanks for sharing this and I hope to be able to pick up on the key messages here. Many thanks, Stuart.

  • Thank you for sharing this wonderful sketchbook, I now have better understanding of how these are supposed to work, this has been an area I have really struggled with.

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