The 30-Day Sketchbook Project: Daily Exercises and Prompts to Fill Pages, Improve Your Art and Explore Your Creativity

by Minnie Small

Build a Consistent Art Habit With One Inspiring Challenge a Day

The 30-Day Sketchbook Project will forever transform the way you view your sketchbook. Through gorgeous yet simple step-by-step projects for each day of the month, illustrator Minnie Small will help you improve your skills, build your confidence and eradicate your fears of the blank page. Each day presents a new practice with three forms of first, an overview of the topic with an approachable tutorial, followed by a prompt to help you make the lesson your own. Last, you’ll get a glimpse into Minnie’s process, as she shares some of her own sketchbook pages. Through this insight, you’ll not only learn how to put the prompts into practice, but you’ll also gain a greater appreciation of intuitive learning and the beauty of creative imperfection.

Get started in the first days with exciting exercises like the Timed Challenge and Master Study before easing into more elaborate ones like Observational Drawing and Monochrome Paintings. Keep the rhythm going with Collage Paintings and Ink Illustration. Then, see how far you’ve come when you reach more advanced lessons like Plein Air, Realism and Alternative Self-Portrait.

Whether your artwork lives only in the pages of your sketchbook or you use these exercises as a launching point for other work, it won’t take long to see the positive impact of this daily practice in your art. Let your imagination run wild, your love of creativity renew and your faith in your skills flourish, one day at a time.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Drawing, Education

322 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 9, 2022

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book in a giveaway and I originally thought that this book was going to be a sketch book and a tutorial book, but really it’s just a book with tutorials. That being said, I still enjoyed flipping through the examples and trying it out. It is not the most beginner friendly, because you need a lot of different supplies to copy the exact examples, but there was a lot a good exercises in there to build your skills. I also liked how she showed examples on how to make a sketch book sort of like a journal. Overall, this was enjoyable and I can tell the author out a lot of effort into it!

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

During the pandemic, I came across Minnie Smalls’ YouTube channel. About a year and a half beforehand, a friend got me into Let’s Make Art, which used to have really fun free YouTube watercolor videos and optional physical art boxes providing materials for the tutorials.

Back to the point! I didn’t have the luxury of extra time some folks did during the pandemic (had less!), but I did have a lot of time for art. And looking for tangentially related art YouTube channels (not just the Welsh Twins). That’s how I found Minnie Smalls! She has lovely videos about sketchbooks and blogs and many other things-well worth checking out!

Lo and behold, I was browsing through our books at the library this summer and came across this great sketchbook inspiration book! I completed 5 or so of the prompts and really enjoyed Minnie’s instructions and examples from her own sketchbooks. I also really enjoyed the variants and sub-exercises offered.

This is one of the best sketchbook inspiration books I’ve seen so far and am very likely to buy!

[Tara Blais Davison · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5 Though certain exercises were useful, I really don’t rate this book because it had few and poor quality images. I think one of the most necessary components of a book about visual art is decent images. This book lacked both an ample number of images and sufficient visual details in order to guarantee the successful implementation of a 30-day art project.

[Cameron Toney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Be warned, this is a mixed media sketchbook book, not a plain pen and paper sketchbook book. The author expects that you'll work in watercolor or other media in your sketchbook, which is good and interesting, but not what I was looking for exactly.

[Susan]

The 30-Day Sketchbook Project by Minnie Small

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heads up - Good Reads only allows me to list a Kindle edition for this book, but I actually have the physical soft-cover copy.

I purchased this book when I first found out about it over the summer. I really enjoyed the book for the most part. It contains lots of creative ideas and exercises to use to fill pages in your sketchbooks, ranging from beginner-level exercises to advanced exercises that may be more comfortable to do if you've been doing art for a few years.

She also provides step-by-step instructions for each of her exercises with directions on how to use the suggested mediums in the book.

The most valuable exercise I got out of this book was the exercise to "break in" my sketchbooks by flipping through to random spreads and adding doodles around the edges, or painting color over a page, or pasting in colored paper. At first, I was a little anxious how these pages, especially the ones with the doodles around the edges, would affect my composition when I'd eventually come up on the page, but really, they just enhance whatever I draw or paint on the page. Sometimes I find myself purposely flipping through to one of those broken-in pages to do some work instead of sticking with a completely blank page.

This exercise also broke me from the habit of going through my sketchbooks from cover-to-cover. Meaning, I used to always start with the first page, then work through the sketchbook in order. Now I feel more comfortable with just flipping to random pages in my sketchbook. There's nothing wrong, of course, with methodically filling your sketchbooks from front to back, but I find my creativity gets a boost when I push myself out of my routines on occasion.

Be aware that her lessons sometimes require wet media, so be sure the sketchbook you choose for this can handle it. Get a mixed media or student-grade watercolor sketchbook to be safe.

And, while she says you don't have to rush out and buy art supplies, that statement feels a bit contradicted when you come to lessons in her book that are medium-specific, such as "Practicing gouache blending and gradients" in her "Oceans and Skies" lesson. I'm an art geek so have just about every art supply under the sun, but this may be a source of frustration if you're really new to art and all you have are maybe some ball-point pens and some colored pencils.

She does, of course, suggest that you get creative if you don't have the medium called for in the exercise, but just wanted to point it out.

Overall, fun book from a favorite artist of mine.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if Minnie meant for this to be a go-to guide for illustrating 101, but this book may be the one I point everyone to if they ask how to get started — especially since this guide focuses on working in your sketchbook and not creating formal/final work. Minnie's approach doesn't overthink the setup or supplies. Her guide encourages you to get marks down in your sketchbook quickly, and you build confidence from there. Understanding color theory sort of comes naturally in exercises throughout the book. I found her intro to supplies to be very inclusive to all levels. I suppose it depends where you are in your own art journey. This is a sketchbook-specific guide book that helps you start and build momentum in putting marks on paper. I sometimes find other watercolor fundamental books to be daunting — not with this one. I bought this book because I'm a big fan of her YouTube channel, and it exceeded my expectations.

I also loved the photography of her own sketchbook showing how she approaches the exercises throughout the book. The loose style and approach makes the guidebook feel relatable and not so stuffy and formal.

[Jeske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a while to figure out how I wanted to read this book. One chapter at a time and draw along with the prompts? Or just read it like a normal book, perhaps even take notes and use it for inspiration whenever I feel stuck with my art?

I started withbthe first option, but ended with the second one. The topics and prompts in this book sometimes truly are challenging and I don't know if I'll ever try them out (e.g. drawing on black or toned paper, anything related to portraits). But the step-by-step breakdown of the drawings and Minnie's take on the process has been very insightful.

I also really love that Minnie talks about the pieces in her sketchbooks that didn't turn out as expected. Great work!

[Dee Renee Chesnut · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Kindle book does exactly what the title offers 30 days worth of exercises and prompts which helped me fill pages in the three sketchbooks I am currently using: sketch paper; mixed media; and watercolor paper. It opened my eyes to the new material, gouache.
Small has a YouTube channel with a playlist titled "Fill a Sketchbook with Me" https://youtu.be/vtOzbQE5X3s for those of us who need to see what she is doing to fully understand and try it ourselves.

[✨EJ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is for the PAPAR BACK edition that is not listed in goodreads.

I've been a fan of Minnie Small's YouTube channel for a while now. I find her approach to art (and life in general) playful and inspiring. This is a great book to help with blank page anxiety.