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Sketchbooks: My Personal Creative Practice
In the spirit of learning by observing, Sketchbooks was originally published as a kind of digital apprenticeship. For over a year, I shared excerpts from my sketchbooks in the form of a twice-monthly paid email subscription. Each issue documented my own creative practice, composed in the moment and from typed excerpts of my handwritten blank books. Readers could virtually peer over my shoulder as I worked and interact if they wished. The next best thing to getting to hang out in the studio together.
While there are some opportunities to come and work with me in person, I didn’t want geography, travel and the associated time and expense to be limiting factors. And while I create online courses, too, the focus of on the content of the course and the experience of the students, not on my personal process. Sketchbooks offers readers insight into my own private creative practice.
What You’ll Find in Sketchbooks:
It’s writing, it’s work-in-progress, it’s thought experiments, it’s what I’m reading that inspires me and what I see in the world that gives me hope.
It’s the raw edge of creation, where ideas, passion, and excitement intersect with doubt and fear.
It’s about my dreams and ideas, and how I work toward making them real. It’s about the rougher edge of creativity, where the destructive tendencies are rooted and how I wrestle with those, too.
It’s how I deal with money, in a crazy economy as a single, self-employed artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S.
It’s how I crave belonging and connection and community, and yet am by nature a hermit, a true introvert, who is shy and prone to isolation.
It’s my living experiment with art-making, economics, marketing, and how the intersection of all these makes thriving (and sometimes just surviving) as a working artist possible in the 21st century.
While there are some opportunities to come and work with me in person, I didn’t want geography, travel and the associated time and expense to be limiting factors. And while I create online courses, too, the focus of on the content of the course and the experience of the students, not on my personal process. Sketchbooks offers readers insight into my own private creative practice.
What You’ll Find in Sketchbooks:
It’s writing, it’s work-in-progress, it’s thought experiments, it’s what I’m reading that inspires me and what I see in the world that gives me hope.
It’s the raw edge of creation, where ideas, passion, and excitement intersect with doubt and fear.
It’s about my dreams and ideas, and how I work toward making them real. It’s about the rougher edge of creativity, where the destructive tendencies are rooted and how I wrestle with those, too.
It’s how I deal with money, in a crazy economy as a single, self-employed artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S.
It’s how I crave belonging and connection and community, and yet am by nature a hermit, a true introvert, who is shy and prone to isolation.
It’s my living experiment with art-making, economics, marketing, and how the intersection of all these makes thriving (and sometimes just surviving) as a working artist possible in the 21st century.
500 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2013
7 people want to read
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January 17, 2020
"Sketchbooks" was one of the most helpful books I've read on doing creative work for a living. The author and I are of a very similar temperament, and I found myself in page after page. As I was starting my career around 2005 and up until a few years ago, I had no role models for this gentle, humane, compassionate approach to work. All the creative business authors/bloggers/coaches I've encountered seemed to be bursting with energy, and ridiculously focused, disciplined and ambitious. I am none of those things. Lisa gets me.
I've re-read "Sketchbooks" (and I'll probably read it again) because I need to be reminded that I am not faulty for having less energy and motivation than I used to in my 20s, that I should not feel guilty for prioritizing ease and well-being, and most importantly, that doodling or writing in a journal totally count as "productive work time" for creative professionals.
I've re-read "Sketchbooks" (and I'll probably read it again) because I need to be reminded that I am not faulty for having less energy and motivation than I used to in my 20s, that I should not feel guilty for prioritizing ease and well-being, and most importantly, that doodling or writing in a journal totally count as "productive work time" for creative professionals.
Displaying 1 of 1 review