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The Power of Sketchbooks
How a sketchbook was the stepping stone back onto my creative pathway
29/03/2026
After my initial euphoria at completing my MA I became unaccountably creatively paralysed and did no painting for the next 5 or so years. I hadn't realised quite how fundamentally important creativity was in my life and how badly that absence was affecting my mental health and wellbeing.
Until May 25 when Martin and I went on a campervan trip to France in May 2025. As always I took my beloved Art Bag packed with my painting and sketching materials and put it into its usual storage place on the van. It remained unused until about 5 days later when I came across it and experienced such a wave of regret and self-recrimination that I felt physically sick. I decided then and there to complete a sketch per day - whatever the subject - for the rest of the trip.
That decision proved to be life-changing for me and I became quite obsessive about locating my daily subject and, possibly inspired by my MA focus, trying to capture the spirit or essence of the place we were in. This resulted in the regular incorporation of natural materials, which isn't a way I'd ever worked before but thoroughly enjoyed.
I hadn't realised how grouchy and depressed I'd become when I wasn't using my creative abilities until I started the exercise and it was like a weight being lifted, or more realistically a dam unblocked. Creativity flowed in, in all sorts of other unexpected ways with poetry writing itself in my head as I worked, followed by a conscious decision to try to write a haiku to accompany each sketch. This aided hugely in recapturing the feel of each place as poems can often do.
I've no doubt that it was this rediscovery of my creative self that opened the door to the serendipitous event covered in the next blog which resulted in me picking up my paintbrush again. The universe works in mysterious and magical ways.
The accompanying sketch is the second in my book and was done sitting on the edge of a beautiful, peaceful lake in the wonderful site we stayed in that evening.
(Note to self: get a new phone with a camera that works...)
Until May 25 when Martin and I went on a campervan trip to France in May 2025. As always I took my beloved Art Bag packed with my painting and sketching materials and put it into its usual storage place on the van. It remained unused until about 5 days later when I came across it and experienced such a wave of regret and self-recrimination that I felt physically sick. I decided then and there to complete a sketch per day - whatever the subject - for the rest of the trip.
That decision proved to be life-changing for me and I became quite obsessive about locating my daily subject and, possibly inspired by my MA focus, trying to capture the spirit or essence of the place we were in. This resulted in the regular incorporation of natural materials, which isn't a way I'd ever worked before but thoroughly enjoyed.
I hadn't realised how grouchy and depressed I'd become when I wasn't using my creative abilities until I started the exercise and it was like a weight being lifted, or more realistically a dam unblocked. Creativity flowed in, in all sorts of other unexpected ways with poetry writing itself in my head as I worked, followed by a conscious decision to try to write a haiku to accompany each sketch. This aided hugely in recapturing the feel of each place as poems can often do.
I've no doubt that it was this rediscovery of my creative self that opened the door to the serendipitous event covered in the next blog which resulted in me picking up my paintbrush again. The universe works in mysterious and magical ways.
The accompanying sketch is the second in my book and was done sitting on the edge of a beautiful, peaceful lake in the wonderful site we stayed in that evening.
(Note to self: get a new phone with a camera that works...)
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