If each of us is an ecosystem (and we are), then sketchbooks have an important niche in mine. As a full-time professor, part-time professional consultant, and full-time family member, I find especially during the teaching terms there is very little time for personal art, so quick sketches are a great antidote and make me feel a lot more productive. There’s a nice feedback loop among these various sketchbooks — observational, imaginative, and nature journals — they all bring new things out in each other that can then feed into more sustained work in the non-teaching summertime.

Click on the subheadings to see galleries of my various approaches to sketchbooking.