Illustration Sketchbooks

The Illustration Sketchbooks unit provides a practical exploration of drawing through the development of a range of creative approaches. Recognising the central role of drawing within illustration, the unit encourages you to develop a sense of your own personal voice through experimentation with drawing, mark making and materials. A series of sustained drawing-based projects aims to support the development of your sketchbook as an on-going process and resource that can feed into your development as a creative practitioner.

The unit will introduce a range of approaches to drawing and documenting from life by undertaking observational, narrative and reportage drawing projects based on the idea of the ‘everyday’. Supporting these projects will be an examination of drawing as a way of capturing the seen world through reportage and figure drawing.

Using a series of motifs as a starting point, you will creatively explore the potential of a range of materials, processes and mark-making tools within your sketchbook. These motifs will provide a structure to examine the basic visual building blocks of image-making, through colour, tone, line and shape as well as encouraging experimentation with mixed-media.

The potential of your sketchbook to act as seedbed for new ideas will be explored through projects that encourage a process-led approach. These projects will explore drawing through repetition and variation, narrative structures, and other prompts that will encourage visual experimentation and the development of new approaches to image-making. Your learning log will provide a space to reflect on the results, make connections to the work of other artists and designers, and to help identify your own personal voice.

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How will I learn Key Steps?

Using a figure as a starting point, you’ll explore different tools and materials to achieve your intentions. You’ll explore the differences between your intentions and others perceptions, exploring subjective vs objective drawing.

You’ll also consider the interplay between text and image; what words is the image saying, and as importantly, not saying? Writing your own text will help you to tell your stories with text and image together.

Using sketchbooks as a tool, you’ll develop critical thinking, visual research, and idea generation. By looking at the work of others you’ll understand historical and contemporary contexts. With these, and the critique of your tutor and peers you’ll identify your own personal voice in image.

So if you’re a budding illustrator start here today.

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You’ll learn with guidance from one of our fabulous tutors, click below to see the team.

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Key Steps in Illustration

Not sure if this is the course for you? Explore our Key Steps in Illustration personal development course.

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Drawing Open Foundation

Looking to take your first step in higher education? Our Foundation Drawing course could be the place to start.

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