In addition to my morning coffee and sketch routine, I have an afternoon sketch and walk practice that I’m trying to be more consistent with. It’s always a bit of a challenge, as the point of the walk is exercise, not stopping to sketch, so the sketch has to be very quick (under 5 minutes).

I generally walk in the afternoon/evening and have sometimes tried to incorporate a super quick sketch while doing my exercise. I had a separate small kit (with a random collection of 10 coloured pencils and a few different-toned paper notebooks) that I would use. Once home, I would glue my sketch into my sketchbook.

Here is an example of my toned paper approach from last year. And a few more examples of these types of sketches can be found here.

But these days, I want to sketch directly into my book, which means that I have to carry my big, heavy A4 sketchbook with me. I carry it in my hand and then choose a few tools to include in a tiny cross-body bag.

Sometimes, it’s a small sketch…

…that I fit into a spread I’ve been working on during the day.

Other times, I work larger and start a new spread. This creates an incentive to do more sketching in the evening to complete the spread. 🙂

Two closing thoughts:

1. My goal with my everyday sketching is to capture moments, not create masterpieces, and these two examples of super quick sketches are (once again) modified versions of my 7 Lines and 5 Shapes techniques from Travel Sketching.
2. How I approach a particular sketch is usually determined by Sketchbook Design considerations, and I’m constantly asking myself: Where should I put a sketch? How big should it be? Will I be able to add more sketches to the spread later that day?