Revisiting Old Work

When I kept a daily journal, I never went back and read them and I felt the same way about my sketchbooks. I’d fill one, and then put it on a shelf in a closet and move on to the next one. Sometimes, I’d take one out, flip through it and quickly put it back on the shelf. 

An often-cited reason for keeping a sketchbook is that you’ll be later inspired by colors or composition and start a new project, but I’m not so sure that works for early sketchbook work. Early sketchbook work is just plain awful.

I know this because last night, I decided to take all of my sketchbooks out of the closet and look at all of them. And then, I did the same thing with my box of collages. My recycling bin is full today because I threw out so much paper. 

I could easily tell the order the sketchbooks went in, even though none of them had dates because the first one was incredibly bad. I was trying out all the art supplies I could find and the pages were total chaos. The pages were so covered with paint, mark-making, collage, and words that I couldn’t even tell what I was trying to accomplish. I don’t have the courage to share these pages here because they are so, so bad. 

But I didn’t give up and I could see slow improvement with every sketchbook I filled. I kept that first one, but a few in the middle went into the trash.  I could tell, from looking at the collages, who I was taking a class from because the style I was mimicking was clearly not mine. I was trying everything and learning bits and pieces of what I liked and what didn’t feel like me. As I got into the newer sketchbooks, I could see where I was settling into a style and developing actual compositions. What a relief to see some progress!

Instead of feeling energized that I was finally doing good work, I felt disheartened. I still am not where I think I should be. And I have to wonder if anyone ever feels like they have arrived; I doubt it. I think artists just keep going and show up every day. We make lots of garbage, have moments of success, and just keep going. 

When I went into the bin of finished collages that I considered my best work, I found that most of them weren’t that great. I spent the morning with a stack of them, sorting through and finding what I could save. I used my Exacto knife to peel off pieces of book covers that I might want to use again.

I filled a garbage can with everything else. I learned that I need to use way more glue because some of them peeled up with almost no effort. Adding lots of paint to a collage that wasn’t working isn’t a good plan because I ended up with a thick page of, well, muck. I learned that I need to be careful when working with antique and vintage materials because using too many of them together created a piece that look too old and tattered. 

I made a grid collage with some of the pieces, almost as a reminder of the experiments that had come before. I’ll probably send this one to the recycling bin during my next cleaning spree. Because there will be another clean-out in a few months as I keep learning and experimenting. I’ll keep filling sketchbooks and more of them will be saved as my work improves. 

If you are thinking that you aren’t improving, that you should just stop and find another hobby- don’t. Just go back and look at your sketchbooks or your Instagram profile and you’ll see how far you’ve come. Then open a new sketchbook and keep working.