I think it’s difficult to talk about the creative process directly, so we use an analogy.
A hero’s Journey is a good one.
For me, at least, football, the beautiful game, is a good one.
Stand up Comedy is a good one.
But today, we’ll use cooking.
I don’t cook much anymore, but I look forward to a time when I will do that again. But when I did cook, one of the tricks to getting an acceptable result was having the right ingredients; getting those ingredients is a skill.
So the analogy is the sketchbook is like a place to store ingredients for future recipes. Sometimes we collect ingredients with a particular dish in mind; other times, we collect ingredients with a wide general utility, and sometimes we collect novel things.
When it comes to actually making an illustration, to make it work, you’re going to need the ingredients; sometimes, it’s a pose, a piece of furniture, an interesting way to draw an everyday object, or a piece of fashion, an expression.
You can start ‘shopping’ for these ingredients at that moment, or if you have been storing them up, you can use some of those stored ingredients.
Here’s a shopping list of ingredients that you might need in future illustrations:
Architectural elements
Room Interiors, Furniture, Shelves
Food
Plantlife
Wildlife
Poses
Expressions
Shapes
Textures
Characters
Is there anything you would add to the shopping list?
How to read like a pro is an 8-minute video by Ryan Holiday about collecting from what we read, a parallel idea.
Adam, thank you for the link at the bottom to the video of Ryan's system of keeping notes -
it was amazing and inspiring. I have been trying various systems and looking for something... and that brought me right back to using index cards in high school, which I remember as being SO helpful. Thank you!
Colours! I don't want beige food, cook me up a feast for the eyes