Notes and Doodles

A selection of pages from small sketchbooks since 2012. When my children were very young, I found it very difficult to make any kind of artwork due to tiredness. I was also teaching full time and I really had very little opportunity to paint. One day, when I was on a school trip with some students, I bought myself a small, mole-skin sketchbook so that I could make notes and sketch some of the museum sights. I quickly realised that a book this small was perfect for carrying around and something I could keep on me at all time. It swiftly became a diary or journal. I write in it most days and draw or doodle whatever comes into my head at the time. Sometimes it is just “taking a line for a walk”, sometimes it is influenced by what the students are doing in class and sometimes I flirt with a bit of observational drawing. I love these books and in many ways think of them as the truest form of art that I do – pure and only slightly filtered. What they say about me or my subconscious I’ll leave for others to decide.