Doodle All the Day

There's been a lot of buzz lately about sketchbooks amongst art quilters. I really enjoy checking out all the posts related to the sketchbook challenge. I admire all those artists who do journal, and love to see how their journaling eventually translates into other work.

Yesterday I received my copy of the latest SAQA Journal, and lo and behold there was even an article about sketchbooks/journals by Vivien Zepf.It made me feel much better! I don't journal, or even have a sketchbook. I use the computer as what I like to call my "virtual design wall". I do sketch out ideas occasionally, and have a folder full of sketches I've made over the years, but it's not something that I feel compelled to do. The one exception is when I'm considering new quilting designs (as in the actual stitching, not the overall quilt). Here are two pages of sketches, or doodles, that I made while thinking about upcoming "Filler Finesse" columns for Machine Quilting Unlimited.

OK, the number line at the top is not a potential quilting design - it was an illustration of negative numbers for my youngest son

 Designing quilting motifs or fillers for an article is an iterative process for me. I go back and forth between sketching, stitching, and then making a clean diagram in Illustrator. I skip the illustrator step if I'm working on a quilt and not writing an article.

So do you have a sketchbook or journal? How does it fit in to your design process?