Below you'll find three pages, each spaced about four years apart.
Although I'd been drawing for years, during a 2012 family trip to New York, I started sketching in earnest. And I sketched everything; at times to the chagrin of my family. What we ate, what we saw, who we met all got captured in pencil by day and with color come evening. In those days I was using the sketchbook as a journal as well.
My wife says this is her favorite of all my sketchbooks. She loves reading, so maybe that tells you something.
By 2016 I found myself saying less, trying to tell the story with drawings, but when I used words, I used bigger text. Back then, motion and feeling seemed more important to me than detail.
In late 2019, I took a sabbatical, traveling alone by boat in British Columbia. Since I didn't talk to anyone most of the time, I drew like a madman. Looking back through that sketchbook, there was a combination of bold pages, then pages with small drawings and text, much like 2012. I realize now that I was trying to capture and understand what I saw, all by myself.
I was frequently overwhelmed by the scale of the landscape and drew several pages similar to the one below. I see now that these big spreads were raw emotion.
A colleague at work only sees my books a few times a year. She says I'm getting "better."
I agree my sketching has changed and if it is for the better, it's because I'm learning to show how I see and that makes me happy.
How has your sketching changed over time?
-Bruce
