Sketchbook Maths

All us creative types can do figures can't we?

The orange sketchbook was a gift from my husband which is lovely. It’s a Royal & Langnickel which is fancy. It’s orange which I like.

The paper is a bit thin and paint bled through it so I decided to only use every other page.

When I started this sketchbook I hadn’t done any observational drawing for about six months and I knew I’d need to get lots of rubbish drawings out.

Even so it’s surprising just how many rubbish drawings it takes to get a good one.

There’s roughly 97 spreads in this sketchbook. By spreads I mean:

left hand side page + right hand side page = 1 spread

From those 97 spreads there’s 3 spreads worth of drawings I knew I could share to social media and get a decent response in likes and comments. That’s:

(Me not knowing how to do percentages) + Google = less than 4% of shareable drawings.

social media likes a tree

The other 96% of the drawings are:

Me trying + failing = learning

social media also inexplicably likes boat and harbours

Important point: Good drawing does not equal a drawing that gets lots of likes and comments on social media. Though it can feel like that if you’re not gentle with yourself.

Out of the 97 spreads in this sketchbook I also got 3 spreads of drawings that I really liked but I know will not get much in the way of likes and comments on social media.

I flippin love the goalie’s gloves and the girl diving for the ball in the background

They are all quite sqooshy and hard to read but I loved making the big clunky marks and they feel like the beginning of a creative thread I want to pull on.

social media does not like a hard to understanding painting of skateboarders

I really like the wiggly trees against the straight lines of the plastic barricade. And the blue pop of the one way sign.

So, in my fancy orange sketchbook I made:

3 spreads I was happy to share + 3 spreads I was pleased with for myself = 6 spreads out of 97

which is:

(Still not knowing how to do percentages + Google) = just over 6% of drawings.

Now I know to expect roughly 6% of my drawings to be successful I can draw in any fancy sketchbook and not be intimidated because I know:

100% of what happens in a sketchbook = (trying + failing + learning) = progress

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A high speed video of the whole sketchbook if you fancy seeing the full debacle.

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Further Reading:

I felt so seen reading these posts about how we drive ourselves crazy with comparing, trying to be perfect and the joy of making rubbish work

per-feck-shuh-who?

My sketchbook is a complete piece of crap

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All my posts are remaining free and open for the foreseeable future! If you fancy getting me a cuppa tea that would be amazing! Totally up to you, we’ll still be friends!

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