The Sketchbook as a Compass
It’s been a while since I’ve written here, and if I’m honest, the last few months have been heavy with resistance. Self-doubt creeps in, time feels scarce, and the weight of ordinary life often pushes art to the margins. Yet, even in these stretches where I feel stuck, I’ve found one tool that keeps me moving forward: the sketchbook.
The sketchbook is more than paper—it’s a compass. It points me back to my creative north when I’ve wandered off course. A sketch doesn’t demand perfection, it simply asks me to show up. And in showing up, I learn.
Sketching is practice in its purest form. It’s like sight-reading a piece of music for the first time—notes stumbled through, rhythms uncertain, but alive with possibility. It’s the athlete running drills before stepping onto the field. The value isn’t in flawless execution; it’s in the act of preparing, exploring, and discovering what works and what doesn’t. A sketch is freedom: the place where mistakes are allowed and curiosity leads.
Sketching in the back yard - © Michael Warth
But sketching is also a record. Each page in my book becomes part travelogue, part diary. A tree sketched on a hot afternoon, a building captured from the corner of a café table, a messy drawing of a utility pole on a day when the light hit just right. These sketches are more than studies—they are markers of where I’ve been and what I noticed. They remind me of the moment I was there…the sounds, the air, the action.
In this way, the sketchbook is both compass and chronicle. It steadies me when resistance says, “don’t bother,” and it points me back toward the work I want to do. Each line is both practice for tomorrow’s painting and a record of today’s life.
So if you see what I’ve shared here, know that they are not finished works. They are my practice scales, my warm-up laps, my sight-read notes. But they are also maps of my days, proof that I was present enough to look, to notice, and to record. And maybe that’s the truest part of being an artist: the willingness to embrace process over perfection while trusting that even the roughest sketches can guide us—and remind us—of somewhere worth going.
And perhaps this isn’t only for artists. Maybe your notebook, your camera, or even your journal can be a compass too—quietly pointing you back toward the things that matter most.
Follow me on Instagram at @WarthStudios if you would like to see more of my “Drink-N-Doodle” sketches (as I like to call them). I share other art related bits there too.
