Author’s Sketch Book–A picture tour

While I am more of a writer than an artist, drawing is actually a huge part of my creative process. I’ve liked to draw scenes and characters for a long time. I doodled those things regularly starting around my senior year of high school. Scratch that. I remember doing it in fourth or fifth grade. I did most of these on pieces of paper folded in half. It’s the most comfortable size for me. However, in my second year of college, coincidentally, about the same time I started exploring Aviandria, I did something I’d never tried before. I bought myself a sketch book. I drew pictures on the right pages while taking notes on the left side pages. I took that sketchbook many, many places with me. Some drawings are better than others, but I consider them all in interesting documentation of more than ten years of my life. I never expected to do anything like this, but since I promised that these blog would contain behind the scenes stuff, sharing part of my sketchbook would fit perfectly. It’s played a huge role in the development of my writing.

We start with the outer cover. As you can see by the wear and tear, it’s been through a lot. The spine of the cover has fallen off, and I’ve had to use tape to keep the front cover from doing the same. Other than that, it’s a very typical, black sketchbook.

My very first drawing was of Sir Percival Blakeney, followed by a few other members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. This was pretty much my obsession through high school and much of college.

This was the first drawing directly related to Aviandria. It is titled, “Uniform of the Sky Corps of Aviandria.” And, that’s exactly what it is.

The picture right after that, of course, is “Uniform of the Ground Corps of Aviandria.” It’s mostly correct. You may wish to notice the notes on the left-hand page. This is where that habit really started.

There are a great variety of Aviandrian pictures. Some are characters, some are scenes, some are costumes. Some I’ve already posted other places. I’ll highlight just a few here.

The next two pictures are the same scene drawn different ways at different times. On the first, I’ve included the left-hand page where I experimented with writing my notes in Aviandrian.

Many of the drawings have nothing to do with my books but still have an Aviandrian feel.

There are also plenty of pictures that have nothing do do with Aviandria.

The opportunities to use my sketchbook have dwindled considerably since I’ve been in college where note-taking was common. However, I do still find time to draw when I can. Here is the last picture in the book so far. It is still a work in progress. Hopefully, I can complete it soon.

While this is far from everything in my sketchbook, perhaps it has given a fun glimpse into another aspect of my creative endeavors.

What do you use to record your life and interests? Do you have a sketchbook or a journal, or something else?