What a wonderful thing is a sketchbook. I sat down at my desk this morning with a blank sketch page ready and open on my desk to start my next big project. First, I wanted to go back to my original inspiration. I was delayed at Bristol Airport, it must have been spring 2006, when an idea sprung into my mind.

I got my little sketchbook out and began to work out the idea. It was probably the coming together of lots of ideas, but at that moment, all the pieces fitted together. I’ve found the original page and here is a picture of it. I think I had recently got into mind-mapping, and this is a great example of how I’ve adapted Mind Maps
for my own use.

My sketchbooks are full of little diagrams like these. What is so great about sketchbooks is that you can see ideas evolving and better still how one improves over time. I’ve skimmed through five or six year’s worth of sketchbooks this morning. I found one tiny, throw away sketch for a couple of characters that must have popped into my head three years ago. I’ve never thought about them again. I looked at the sketch in amazement. Did I draw that? Is that my idea? It’s brilliant. I’ve redrawn it in my current sketchbook to reinforce the idea and keep it up to date. If I wasn’t ready or capable to work on those characters then, I am now, both technically and emotionally.

Another surprise was my handwriting. This had got progressively worse over the years. I made all sorts of excuses for it. In the last three years I’ve been working on it. I can’t believe how bad it was and how much better it has got. The secret? I’ve slowed down and every now and then I do exercises. When I write something badly, I analyse the letterflow and see what I’m doing wrong and revise the cursive joins of the letters, then see if those revisions work with other words. One or two lettershapes I have changes completely.

I’m also surprised how much scribbled writing there is in my old sketchbooks. Something must have happened about three or four years ago, because they start to fill up with drawings and mind map diagrams and the scribble writing, which used to fill up most of my sketchbooks, fades out. It was probably the mind maps that did it. I can put that down to Anne Marley, the wonderful Children’s Librarian from Winchester. I was telling her my suspicions about left and right brain learning one night, and how I thought right brain thinkers are positively discriminated against in the education system. The next day she gave me a piece of paper on which was written Tony Buzan’s name and the title of a book on Mind-Mapping
. The book quite blew me away. Since then, my organising, plotting and planning has been much more structured and understandable. Previously, I scrawled down whatever came into my head, with unreadable writing. It was more catharsis than organisation.

I’m amazed also at how my drawing has improved over that time, especially since most of that time my illustrations have been done on the computer. Maybe the way I work on the computer has changed the way I think about drawing?

Still it’s good to know that I’m still going forward and haven’t stopped learning. Now, down to the real work.