Draw Your Day

Description

An instructive guide to creating an illustrated journal based on artist and Instagram sensation Samantha Dion Baker’s unique creative process, featuring information on materials, creative inspiration and instruction, prompts, and helpful tips and tricks.

Samantha Dion Baker is a widely admired and followed artist on Instagram, where she shares her “sketch journal,” an illustrated daily record of her life, drawn in a fresh, modern style. In Draw Your Day, Baker guides you through her inspirational practice and provides guidance for starting your own. Part instructional guide and part encouraging manifesto about how making art–even art that’s not museum-worthy–can make your life more mindful and meaningful, Draw Your Day is ideal for both seasoned artists looking for fresh inspiration, as well as aspiring artists who need a friendly nudge to get started.SAMANTHA DION BAKER is an artist and graphic designer known for her detailed illustrations and journal work, published most recently in BuzzFeed and on Instagram and Instagram for Business. She graduated from Cooper Union in New York City and spent more than twenty years as a graphic designer working with many iconic institutions including The Whitney Museum of Art, St. Regis Hotels Resorts, and The Shaker Museum. Her illustration clients include The High Line Hotel, Atelier Cologne, and Kikkerland Design. Her self-published daily sketch journals are on permanent collection at The Morgan Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Originally from Philadelphia, Baker lives in Brooklyn Heights with her husband and two boys.INTRODUCTION

It’s hard to say when I first began keeping a journal, but it was probably in high school. I remember spending nights avoiding my homework, writing and doodling in my diary. I never wanted to reveal too much for fear someone would read it, so I always held back a little bit and expressed serious thoughts and feelings through random doodles and drawings, only hinting at the big stuff with a few words. Drawing made me feel less vulnerable than writing out all of the details of my days, and creating those drawings helped me decompress. Handwriting as an art form is an expression of oneself, and I have a deep appreciation for how different writing utensils can alter my script. I have always loved the act of simply writing words—stringing them together in various shapes and sizes or using them to create abstract patterns. The words don’t actually need to say anything. Writing words or single letterforms in groupings—more like stream of consciousness thoughts—has always been a fluid and calming exercise for me. In college I had sketchbooks filled with random writings of patterned words alongside small drawings. I would photocopy these to use in collage work. The sketchbook I used for class notes and planning how I would solve design projects was the most precious thing in my schoolbag. My husband even proposed to me in one of my journals. When I became a mother, I filled journals with our boys’ first words and milestones. I keep travel journals on every trip we take, and I encourage my kids to always have a blank book in their bags as well. There is something about turning the pages of a book—this compact object that contains days, or months, worth of artwork and thoughts, transporting us to another place and time—that has always been so satisfying to me. 

As the years passed, I noticed that the drawings were disappearing from the pages of my journals. As my life got busier with work and family, I spent less and less time drawing. Months turned into years, and eventually I felt as if I could no longer draw. I had spent more than eighteen years working as a graphic designer, and one day I realized that I was desperate for a creative outlet free from computer screens and technology. When I had our boys, I was running a successful design business, and I continued to work throughout their young years. I somehow balanced work and being Mom, but by the time they were in school full time, I knew the commercial design work wasn’t scratching my creative itch. The thought of sitting at the computer for eight hours a day became daunting. So I began to look for a new creative hobby that could enhance my days. But where to begin and what to do? These were scary questions, and I felt that the best place to start was in one of my trusted journals. My husband encouraged me by saying, “You used to draw more. The talent is there, you just have to find it again.” 

So I made a commitment to include some drawing practice on each page of my journal. I had no idea what would happen, but I began to practice. I figured there was no safer place than inside my own private journal to relearn how to draw by hand. After a few months of drawing patterns, letterforms, birds, and food, I gained confidence. At that point I decided not to just draw random sketches, but to use the pages to draw a true record of my life. I thought, Instead of writing out my day for my journaling practice, why not illustrate it? 

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