Five Things You Can’t Do Easily in a Sketchbook (unless it's mobile)

I’ve got sketchbooks everywhere. As I write this, there are five of different sizes by the side of my desk; there’s one sitting on our dining table in the house, which my wife will ask me to move when I go back in for dinner. There’s a drawer-unit in my studio with probably twenty ready and waiting to be cracked open, and I daren’t even think of how many old ones there are in boxes here and in our loft. But, to be honest I just don’t get through them like I used to—my relationship with sketchbooks is changing (but it doesn’t stop me buying them—I do love Moleskines, especially).

The sketchbook is an essential part of being creative. It’s where ideas are born and raised before moving on to mature then eventually be released into the world to make their own way and hopefully inspire the birth of new, even greater creations.

For artists, sketchbooks can be deeply involved and often very beautiful—check out my friend, Duncan Cameron's sketchbooks on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokensharkcage. Creative pros (designers, illustrators and commercial artists), however, rarely have the time to invest in the early stages of projects and, at the risk of stating the obvious, the contents of their sketchbooks tend to be much more “sketchy” literally. I fall broadly into the latter categories; I’ve used sketchbooks all of my working life, and although I still carry one and use them for my more artistic pursuits, my design-based work is almost exclusively done on my iPad with Adobe Photoshop Sketch and Illustrator Draw.

Apps—instead of pencil and paper? Yup—and here’s why I’ve made the switch:

1: Carry an entire studio’s worth of media around

You could never carry that much drawing and painting equipment around, without using a cart—which would completely rule out using The Tube in inclement weather and make revolving doors challenging—to equal all the tools at your disposal in Photoshop Sketch alone. In these apps you have access to pencils, pens, markers and a huge variety of brushes—even many of those you use in Photoshop (plus you can make your own using Adobe Capture)— plus millions of colours, drawing templates like French curves and grids and more. It all adds up to a truly robust and mobile studio!

2: Undo/Redo/Branching

If you make a mistake or change an earlier decision in your physical sketchbook, then it’s either going to take you a little time to erase things—if that is possible (depending on what’s being employed as a drawing tool at the time)—or it’s going to be a bit of redrawing on a new leaf if you want the work to remain “clean”. In the Adobe mobile drawing apps, you have a large number of undos/redos available—there’s even a quick “scrub” history in Photoshop Sketch—and because you can duplicate a project, sketch or drawing in seconds, then there’s the freedom to experiment by creating a new branch of your project. #DrawWithoutFear

3: Images as Components or Guides

With access to your camera, camera roll, Creative Cloud Libraries and files, your browser, other mobile apps and even Adobe Stock, if you need an image to use as a component in your project, or as a piece of drawing reference—you can trace if you need to—then it’s available to use in the apps. The only drawback there is that if you’re without internet access, you’re limited to the content that’s stored on your device or the camera and your stored shots, so you’ll just have to exercise your mind and improvise, but you’re still better off than you would be if you had to get a print of the image and possibly some tracing paper!

4: Share in Seconds

Although easy enough for pretty much anyone to use, these apps are primarily for professionals to accelerate the creative process. An essential component of any project development is collaboration—the apps make it easy to share in a variety of ways immediately and it’s possible to share your project so that others can continue to work on their own version of it; no scanning, cleaning-up in Photoshop, or emailing involved.

5: Send to Desktop

The icing on the cake for those of us using these apps as part of an industrial workflow is their utility beyond the device. You can send your sketch or drawing to Photoshop or Illustrator and use it, or continue developing it there, as well as being able to employ it in a number of other ways in other mobile and desktop softwares.

So, are you convinced? Or at the very least curious? Then download the apps to your tablet or phone today—they’re all available without cost and even a free Adobe ID will give you most of the functionality that the apps have to offer.

Rediscover Your Love of Drawing!

A great many people have learned how to get started with mobile drawing via my #LinkedInLearn courses such as “Drawing with Photoshop Sketch” and many more in-person at events. One of the wonderful things that I’ve found is the interest not only from pros, but also with non-professionals who have managed to reconnect with drawing and rediscover their enjoyment of it as a therapeutic and rewarding pastime.

Don’t just take my word for it! Take a look at the community galleries for some inspiration and to see what’s being made in Photoshop Sketch and Illustrator Draw:

https://www.sketchserved.com/

https://www.illustratordrawserved.com/

Want to get up to speed quickly on these apps? Check out my courses on Lynda.com:

• Drawing with Photoshop Sketch
• Adobe Mobile Apps for Designers

Massive thanks to absolute legend Dan Mumford (@Danmumforddraws) for the use of his work made in Illustrator Draw (accompanying item 4 and at the end of item 5) and to @Kookanooga for the work used as the header for this article. The tank drawing and the wacky professor are two of my works-in-progress, that you'll be able to see on my Behance pages when they're done; the seahorse was drawn at a live event in 2016.

Follow my blog at tonyharmer.expert and my YouTube channel: The Design Ninja gives regular tips, tricks and techniques for Adobe design tools.

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