Making Sketchbook Work Bigger

Hey Everyone

A few pictures from the studio this week. For those who’ve been following me on Instagram for a while, you’ll know I love sketchbooks, I am a huge sketchbook fan, but I’ve always struggled to take my sketchbook work from paper onto canvas.

This week I’ve been stealing snippets of time in between teaching and accounts. I bought some huge canvas (big for me anyway!) 100cm x 100cm. I used a large A3 sketchbook which I keep in the studio for experiments and created this piece below, just to try out some new materials which had arrived from Jacksons.

I work primarily in acrylic on canvas but when I’m on location I use LOADS of materials, anything I can physically carry! So I've slowly been making a few changes to my materials in the studio. I find if I throw everything at my work in the studio it feels overwhemling, but trying things out slowly works well for me. I have a few test canvas which I've been trying things out on first. If you are new to painting I'd really recommend buying a few extra mini canvas along with the one you're working on so you can test things out risk free before working bigger.

I’ve also been slowly working up to this size over the last three years, and it's taken three years to manage to feel a little bit confident to create my sketchbook work bigger. For some people, big jumps in practice might work but for me, I need small steps to make changes and this does feel like a gradual progression for my work.

After working on the one above (which I’m still not sure if it's finished or not) I started the ones below, I’m excited to see where they go!