7 Reasons Why it's worth investing 10 minutes a day in a sketchbook habit.
Break through creative barriers, one sketch at a time.
Habits Build Dreams
Our dreams are built using bricks called habits.
It's the small, consistent actions we take every day that transform our aspirations into achievements. As far as creative habits go nothing beats sketch booking for the outsized benefits that you can gain from a simple 10-minute practice.
Here’s why it’s worthwhile investing in a sketchbooking habit.
1. The Sketchbooks is Your Creative Gym
Your sketchbook is a personal art gym, a space dedicated to strengthen your creative prowess.
Daily sketching is akin to a workout routine for your artistic muscles. Every sketch adds to your repertoire, broadening your range and versatility as an artist. Showing up is a muscle that will surely be called upon.
Regular sketching cultivates both skill and discipline, essential for artistic mastery and growth.
2. You Earn Credibility
Your sketchbook is a visual diary, chronicling your growth and evolution as an artist.
Each page is a step in your artistic journey, reflecting your experiences and experiments. It's a testament to your commitment, showcasing not just your talent but building credibility. Flipping through its pages reveals your progress over time, offering insights into your creative process.
The first thing art directors want to see is your portfolio, the second is your sketchbook.
3. You Learn to Battle Creative Resistance
Daily sketching is your weapon against the all-too-common enemy of creative block.
This habit trains you to start, even when inspiration seems elusive. Regular practice in overcoming resistance builds creative resilience and flexibility. It's about maintaining momentum, keeping the creative juices flowing even on off days.This discipline helps in tackling larger projects, as you learn to navigate and mitigate creative hurdles.
The act of daily sketching becomes a ritual, anchoring your artistic practice.
4. Cradle for Ideas
Think of your sketchbook as a fertile ground where your ideas take root and flourish.
It's where fleeting inspirations are captured and nurtured into fully-formed concepts. Daily entries ensure no spark of creativity is lost; everything is recorded and can be revisited. This practice allows your abstract thoughts to materialize, evolving into tangible artistic expressions.
Over time, your sketchbook becomes a treasury of ideas, ready to inspire bigger projects.
5. A Moment of Mindfulness
Embrace sketching as a daily act of mindfulness, a serene break from the hustle of life.
This practice offers a moment of calm and concentration, focusing your mind solely on the act of creation. It's not just about the art; it's about the peace and clarity that comes with focused artistic endeavour. Daily sketching becomes a meditative process, where stress fades and creativity takes centre stage.
This ritual nurtures not only your artistic skills but also your mental well-being.
6. Foundation for Masterpieces
View each sketch as a stepping stone towards creating your future masterpieces.
Daily practice keeps your skills sharp, ensuring you're always ready for ambitious artistic projects. It's in the routine sketches that the foundation for more complex and grander works is laid. Your sketchbook becomes a playground where concepts are tested and refined, a space where ideas are developed, often leading to breakthroughs in larger works.
Regular sketching lays the groundwork for future artistic achievements, building a solid base for more complex creations.
7. Crafting Your Artistic Voice
Through daily sketching, you carve out and refine your unique artistic voice.
Each page is a step towards defining your style, your thematic preferences, and your expressive techniques. This process of discovery and refinement is gradual, intimate, and deeply personal. Your sketchbook becomes a reflection of your inner world, showcasing your individual perspective.
It's where you experiment and take risks, leading to the development of a distinctive artistic identity. Over time, your sketchbook evolves into a gallery of your personal and professional growth.
Daily sketching is a journey towards finding and honing your artistic voice, a key element in establishing your identity as an artist.
The Journey
It is said that routine in intelligent person is a sign of ambition.
The humble act of sketching daily is an act of ambition. It builds the artist just as it builds a body of work. Ten Minute Artist aims to help you build this vital creative practice.
I experienced a growth spurt as an artist during an intense period between Feb 2021 to Sept 2022
I know because I have the sketchbooks to prove them, keeping a sketchbook was probably a huge reason for the growth spurt. By my 5th Sketchbook I was represented by my agent. By my 6th I was working on my first picturebook.
In 2025, I’m going on this life changing journey again, and I’m taking you with me!
“The first thing art directors want to see is your portfolio, the second is your sketchbook.” - What a great insight, Adam. Thank you for sharing! I just bought my sketchbook this week, and wrote down a list of things I want to draw. So ready for daily sketch practice accountability 😁💪✍️ Also, wanted to add that I happen to be reading “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman, and just finished the chapter on cultivating patience. He writes about “embracing radical incrementalism,” which aligns with what you are saying about the benefits of a daily sketch practice. He mentions writers but the same applies to artists: “The most productive and successful among them generally made writing a smaller part of their daily routine...so that it was much more feasible to keep going with it day after day. They cultivated the patience to tolerate the fact that they probably wouldn’t be producing very much on any individual day, with the result that they produced much more over the long term. They wrote in brief daily sessions - sometimes as short as ten minutes, and never longer than four hours...” I imagine it’s different when you have hard client deadlines, but I have found in my own practice that four hours is really the “limit” of any solid creative flow. Anything longer than that and my brain starts to mush. A sustainable creative practice is so important for long term success, I imagine.
I’m thinking of creating an archive page on my website to upload my sketchbook work. Thoughts?