Peek Inside Vix’s Sketchbook

Our Peek Inside… series takes a look inside peoples’ personal journals to celebrate their creativity and inspire others. Message us at facebook@hartleyandmarks.com if you have a project that you would like to be featured.

This month we talked to the very talented Vix about her sketchbook:

My inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere and can strike at any moment, so it is important that my sketchbook is at hand wherever I am, from my bedside cabinet in the middle of the night, to my handbag as I travel to a meeting or safely sat beside me at my fave cafe.

From the first page of a sketchbook I know if it will be a successful one or not, and I have found that my latest Paperblanks sketchbook, which soon became my favourite, makes me sketch better (no scribbles in this one!) and I genuinely believe that without it I wouldn’t have launched my sketchbox animal range of illustrations in my Etsy shop.

This particular sketchbook started it’s journey into my life as I was inspired by an image of a baby elephant and thought I would pick up a biro and try my hand at drawing one myself, and the rest as they say is history.

Nelson came to life and kick-started my craze for drawing animals, which I had never attempted before.

Once I started I couldn’t stop, and my confidence seemed to increase as more and more animals emerged from the pages.

I’d surprised myself that I could sketch animals better than I thought, so then decided I would try and move away from my traditional style and capture some of my favourite places, starting with my beloved Yorkshire and Haworth, the picturesque village near where I grew up.

Thanks to this one little sketchbook I now have the confidence to put pen to paper and try lots of new things, what’s the worst that can happen?

I end up with a sketch I’m not happy with, and move on. After all, it’s our quirks and imperfections that make us who we are.

I will continue to search for good quality sketchbooks to feed my creativity, and I find that my preferred Paperblanks book works for so many reasons; the hand-stitched binding allows the pages to open fully with no restrictions, the paper quality allows my pen to glide over each page, it is the perfect size, the hardback cover allows it to stand up to the contents of my bag, and finally the design on the front cover reminds me to find inspiration all around!

This final point reinforces my ultimate goal to inspire everybody to be more creative, to continue to or start sketching and to have a good sketchbook in their life!

• More about Vix: www.accidentalvix.co.uk
• Buy from Vix: www.etsy.com/shop/accidentalvix
• Chat with Vix: www.twitter.com/accidentalvix
• Like Vix: www.facebook.com/accidentalvix.uk

Thanks, Vix!