This time around, I’m going to share with you some of my sketches. These come from all sorts of places and different times. Sketching is one of the fundamental elements needed for an artist to improve their abilities.

I always take a sketchbook with me on trips, and depending upon the situation, I might bring some sort of color tools with me. Anything from a simple pencil to color markers can give you the opportunity to jot some of your observations down. Or perhaps it’s a new idea you have for an animation.

My sketchbooks are very eclectic where you will find a detailed realistic sort of drawing on the same page as a cartoon character. My sketchbooks are my journals. Sometimes there is a particular person or object I want to remember for possible future reference. Often I am sketching just to quickly get a pose down that I find interesting. During one of my times working at Disney, I was taking the train to work and that made a perfect place to observe people both on and off the train. It also gave me time to work out ideas.

The nice thing about sketching is that it only costs the price of a sketchbook and pencil. There are all kinds of places you can go to find interesting people, animals, and things to draw. Going to the zoo is a great place to sketch. It can give you the opportunity to draw some animals that you may never get to see in the wild. The local park and even the mall are great places. I like to take a sketchbook with me on my trips when I am flying because the airport can give you some great personalities.

SketchCrawls are groups of people who get together at a particular place just to sketch. The cool thing is that several people might sketch the same person or object, but the results give you a different perspective of the same thing.

So now that the weather is heading towards warmer times, it’s a perfect opportunity to dust off that sketchbook and go out sketching!