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Artful memory-keeping ideas from the world of sketch journaling
If writing about your life isn't for you, how about drawing it? Ideas for using a sketch journal to capture your memories, plus the book that will inspire you.
Have you ever thought of keeping a sketch journal? If the idea piques your interest, then Samantha Dion Baker's new book is a must-read. If you've never even heard of a sketch journal—but think that adding some colorful visuals to your handwritten journal might be a fun new idea—then this book is a great read for you, as well.
Draw Your World: How to Sketch and Paint Your Remarkable Life is filled with vibrant pages from the author's own art journals (inspiration in its own right) coupled with reflections on how her journal-keeping journey has evolved over time. Better yet: Baker offers up specific journaling prompts to help you put pencils and paintbrushes to paper.
Sketch-journaling as memory-keeping
"My entire art-making practice has evolved into a memory-tracking practice,” the Brooklyn–based mom and artist writes. Indeed, she sketches everything in her always-at-hand journals, from her morning coffee and the dog sitting across from her while she drinks it to a fabulous bag spotted on the subway during her commute. Why record the seemingly mundane? Well, paying attention to the present so acutely is a form of meditation, Baker has said; and from my perspective, honoring our daily routines—how we live the bulk of our lives—is equally as important as capturing milestone moments such as birthdays and graduations.
"A sad day, a happy day, a milestone day, a holiday, a sick day—all of these days are filled with tiny moments that, when drawn or written about, will help transport me back,” Baker wrote in her first book, Draw Your Day. "It is fun for me to capture the life of a working mom living in New York City by writing down all of the things I manage to do in one day. " These drawing can invoke sense memories later on—when you look back at that lip gloss you used every day for two years, you'll not only remember the color but the smell and feel of it, too.
Art-inspired ideas for capturing the memories that matter most to you
Samantha Dion Baker is all about honoring the present and the past. In addition to the “bits of the ordinary” that she includes on most every journal page, she suggests striving to capture ideas and emotions. And while, certainly, she provides specific technical advice and tips for what tools you'll need to begin a sketch journaling practice, she stresses that anyone—even a non-artist—can undertake to capture memories through art. “Drawing your world is accessible to anyone compelled to translate the outside world onto a flat surface,” she writes.
The full pages shown from her travel journals in Draw Your World are especially inspiring, as they weave together written observations, sketched remembrances, and tiny details that create such a vibrant and emotional picture of days spent in places from Iceland to Brooklyn. “When we travel,” Baker writes, “my practice becomes more of a family affair, and the artwork and recorded memories in my journal are a gift to all of us as we look at them later on, bringing us back to those precious moments.”
I love her idea of gluing hotel envelopes from family trips right into your sketch journal and stashing receipts, ticket stubs, and other vacation ephemera in there (scrapbook inspired, for sure, but what a surprise when discovering that dimensional element within a two-dimensional journal!).
A few other prompts that I think are relevant for memory-keepers of all kinds:
Present-tense, or ongoing:
every year on your child's birthday, draw a portrait of them (if that's too intimidating, draw some of their favorite things or quote something they've said that year)
celebrate a lost loved one through art
draw souvenirs or scenes from your vacations
Past-tense, or reflective:
"Think back to your happiest moments, jot them down in a notebook, and then create abstract paintings titled as those memories,” Baker suggests.
If your recall your first car, draw it (you can search online for reference photos if you don't have a picture of your own), then—my favorite part!—“record any adventures and road trips you remember in it."
What other ideas come to mind for you? A fair number of family history interview prompts could easily translate into sketch journaling ideas—consider drawing your grandmother in the kitchen, or painting the pie she made for you as a child that never failed to bring a smile; or sketch out what you wore—and carried in your bag—on the first day at a big new job. The possibilities are endless!
A few squares from the Instagram feed of Samantha Dion Baker showing sketches from her journals, where she captures both details from her everyday life and bigger moments from vacations and family milestones.
Get inspired by Samantha Dion Baker:
Follow her Instagram feed, where she shares vibrant pages and sketches from her journals.
Buy her first book, Draw Your Day: An Inspiring Guide to Keeping a Sketch Journal, for an introduction to art journaling and inspiration to pay attention: “Let the small pages of your sketch journal become a personal lens, a way to organize and creatively make sense of the world around you.”
Pick up a copy of her most recent book, Draw Your World: How to Sketch and Paint Your Remarkable Life, for a more expansive way to approach your sketch journaling (and to see how the author’s personal pages have evolved over time).
Up next for the artist and author: Draw Your Day for Kids! This book will include sketch pages for young readers to record their memories and feelings, and will become an original keepsake as they grow up (oh, how I love THAT!).
Note: This is an unsolicited review of a book I purchased at full price. I did not receive any compensation or free products in exchange, and any endorsements within this post are my own.
Affiliate disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com.
Life Story Links: May 29, 2019
Hospice biographers, illustrated journals, personal letters, and more reveal stories & cement legacies for the next generation. Plus, things that hold memories.
“The wondrous thing about being human—the beauty and banality of it—is that we all tend to dwell in the same handful of elemental struggles, joys and sorrows, which is why a book one person writes may help another process her own life a century later...”
—Maria Popova
A mother reading to her son in Marshall, Texas, 1939. Photograph by Russell Lee, courtesy Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.
A Legacy of Stories
ALL IN A LETTER
“There it was. My grandmother’s story, crystalizing out of the ether after 66 years.” An adopted man discovers more than he expected when searching for his birth mother’s country of origin.
HOSPICE BIOGRAPHERS
A charity in England that records people’s life stories in hospices is now set to expand its work to homeless people and prisoners.
CATCH-22
Their grandfather, Papa Julie, “could barely talk about the war at all”—so when his family discovered a journal that charts each mission’s bomb targets and casualties, “the war journal is so jarring to read.” Moreover, said grandfather just may have been the inspiration for one of literature’s most famous characters.
AN IMPRESSIONISTIC RETROSPECTIVE
What a treasure this grandfather left for his family! His hundreds of journals were “filled to the brim with thousands of illustrations, anecdotes, inventions, thoughts, dreams, adventures, misadventures, and historical events filtered through the lens of one family.” Take a peek:
RECKONING
Eve Ensler shares the story of her father’s abuse in a most original—and courageous, intimate—way in The Apology, in which she imagines an apology from her long dead father. Read an excerpt here.
Things We Hold Dear
THE ART OF CURATION
Whether you call it “culling,” as photographers do, or “curating,” as photo organizers do, it is an integral step in preparing your family photos for preservation in a book or video, or for preserving your family archive. Learn how to cull your photos for optimal storytelling and engagement.
PROTECTING FAMILY ARCHIVES
Jim Michael of the Personal History Center in Georgia shares an excerpt from his book Tell Your Story and Save the World. Find tips on preserving family archives including photographs, papers, digital media, and analog audio and video tape.
HOUSE OF MEMORIES
The Minnesota Historical Society launched a statewide dementia-awareness program that uses museum resources to teach professionals and family caregivers how to use everyday objects to draw stories out of people with memory loss.
...and a Few More Links
New biography of Susan Sontag based on hundreds of interviews with people who knew her well
Ten individuals win colorized photographs from their own family history collection.
A look back at a decade of The New York Times Lens column
Illinois man preserves the story of his family’s migration through art exhibit
Memories from a World War II scrapbook
“Lessons on Living from my 106-Year-Old Aunt Doris”
The Bob Dylan Archive finds a permanent, public home in Tulsa.
Short Takes
