Today's Sketchbook Conversation is with Melissa Hyatt. Here's Melissa's story:
I use a sketchbook to capture my ideas, work out compositions and to just play. I am a watercolor artist and surface pattern designer. Many times my simple black line drawings become new designs as in my sea coral and fishy sketches. I love to draw with a Faber Castell Pitt pen for my design work but I also love to sketch in pencil as well.
In preparing for this blog post I rediscovered several sketches in my sketchbooks that I want to go back and paint, it was like finding buried treasure!
Using a Sketchbook helps me to feel organized as I know where to find my ideas, sketches, notes and color studies too. I also think it helps me to develop my drawing skills, I love to do daily drawing challenges on Instagram, last December I participated in a Advent Calendar drawing challenge. I kept all my sketches and ideas in the same book so i knew where to find them. I hadn’t painted any Christmas designs in at least 10 years so it was a great way for me to work on new imagery. The Robin sketch and painting was one of the pieces that I did for that challenge.
I sketched these circles while in South Carolina,
then painted the design”Grace”,
which was the inspiration for the design that I hand painted on my studio floor last spring.
I always bring my sketchbook when I travel , you never know when inspiration will find you! My advice is to keep on sketching no matter where you are on your creative journey…
Thank you, Melissa, for sharing your story and your sketchbooks with us!
Dear reader, you can learn more about Melissa and get in touch:
*Photos in this post © Melissa Hyatt. Used with permission