How to Keep a Sketch Journal

5/22/25 Some time to kill captured in my sketch journal

10/29/24 A special celebration captured from a selfie

It has been a year and a half since I restarted (yet again) a daily sketch journal habit – something I had tried to develop many times over the last decade. In hindsight, this process has been especially interesting to me because it parallels my overall process of drawing and learning to draw: Many starts and stops until finally it stuck (and has stuck for going on 14 years). Why is one attempt at making a creative habit finally successful after many faulty starts? From a process perspective, that question fascinates me.

Trying to answer that question for myself, I analyzed my sketch journal process about a year in. Now that I’ve kept it up consistently for a year and a half, I finally feel confident enough to write this post as a general how-to based on what I’ve learned.

Perhaps the title “how to keep a sketch journal” isn’t quite right; it’s really about how I keep a sketch journal. A journaling process will always be unique and personal. I’m hoping, though, that my tips and experiences might be helpful to someone who is trying to develop their own unique sketch journal habit. Let me know if you are and what ideas you’ve used to stay engaged. I’m endlessly fascinated!

• 

  A6-size, daily-carry Uglybooks are
  still my sketch journal format of choice.

  Choose a sketchbook format that’s small and light and therefore easily portable. This
  might not fit well with everyone’s lifestyle, but I do believe it’s imperative for a sketch journal to be a daily-carry for it to stick as a regular habit. Sketchwaiting and other unplanned, spontaneous opportunities for sketching happen all the time. In fact, I am convinced that they happen more often when you are prepared to capture them because you are more open to seeing those opportunities.

• Incorporate sketch journaling with some other routine you already have. Maybe you commute by bus or train – that’s a prime opportunity for a daily sketch. Or you walk your dog. If your dog wouldn’t cooperatively wait while you sketch (I know of only one dog who is that patient), snap a photo from wherever you are when he/she stops for a pee or a sniff. Then sketch later from that photo. For me, it’s fitness walking: That’s another daily habit, so the two reinforce each other.
• Don’t decide ahead of time what you want your sketch journal to be; in other words, don’t make rules. Leave space and time for your process to evolve organically into one that fits you best. Early in my sketching life, I wanted every sketch in my journal to be from life. If I hadn’t sketched anything by the end of the day, I would sketch any random object in front of me, and that would be a frustrating and meaningless exercise. Another time I tried a large-page format so that I could include multiple vignettes from the whole day. I couldn’t carry the large book with me, so I had to work in it only at home. That didn’t last long. Neither did the time I decided all sketches would be from imagination or memory. My current sketch journal – mostly from life but also some sketches from photos, memory and even comics – has stuck because it’s flexible.

• 

  7/13/25 The most common sketch journal content
  comes from my daily fitness walks. I enjoy recording
  the date, time and weather conditions and capturing
  the seasons.

  Be cautious if one of your motivations for keeping a sketch journal is so that you’ll have something to share regularly on social media. Like a written diary, a sketch journal can be totally private, or not. But if you make each entry with the intention of sharing, it may hold you back from authenticity.

• What should be the subject matter of the sketches? One way to answer that is to ask yourself, What would be enjoyable to look back on years from now? What might prompt a memory of a place or incident I had forgotten about? Or which would be more meaningful – a sketch of my new shoes, or a sketch of a random face from the Internet?

• What about writing? As a lifelong journal keeper, I have a separate written journal, so I don’t write much in my sketch journal except the date, time and weather (I like the diary-like feeling of those facts). But if you don’t keep a separate written journal, you may enjoy jotting notes about the sketch you just made or some unrelated thoughts. Be open to it if it happens, but again, no rules.

• 

  3/26/25 A sketchwaiting opportunity at my
  optometrist's office. This page also documents when
  I got a new pair of glasses.

  Ultimately, sketch journaling should be something you look forward to doing each day, not a burden that gives you anxiety when you’ve fallen behind. If you allow the process to tell you what you want your sketch journal to be instead of the other way around, I think it will be a pleasure, not an annoyance. 

7/15/25 I had snapped a photo of this carpet cleaning
service vehicle parked in front of a neighbor's house to
reference the phone number and website. Later, I 
realized it would make a good sketch to document
a potential step in Phase 3 of my downsizing project.

7/12/25 This page spread didn't fill out as much as I had intended, but Natalie and I chatted more than we sketched during lunch, and that's a good thing to document, too, by way of omission.