Daily Creative Centering Practice
or daily sketchbook meditation/playtime/practice (name it as you wish)
I’ve been keeping a daily sketchbook practice on and off for a while now and would like to share my takeaways in hopes to inspire you to try this practice too. And to tell myself it’s really important for me to keep going.
Why? Because pursuing this simple daily creative practice makes a HUGE difference in life.

It all started back in 2018 when I set out on a journey to draw with coffee and tea for 25 days in a row. I cut myself squares from watercolour paper and used them every morning while having my breakfast, or even before that. After these 25 days and making myself a tiny book from these 25 “drawings” I was kinda hooked. I went on with having fun with my watercolors, mainly just making splashes and drops of colours and observing how cool they behave when I let them. I used watercolor paper squares again and had much fun during this process. Again, it was a daily morning thing, sitting behind the kitchen table with breakfast waiting patiently before me :)
After that I moved into a notebook. It was a bigger one that called to me from a shelf in Mueller store. Those of you who know Mueller, know this is not an art store, it’s a mish-mash of a lot of things with some office supplies and lately, more and more cheaper art supplies too. That notebook looked sooooo nice and sat really well in my hands so I just had to have it. In the first few days of using it, I realized it doesn’t take water media at all but that was ok, I proceeded with my beloved colored pencils and ink pens. For that, it was still perfect and here’s how it looked like and a page from it:
I experienced this huge satisfaction when I first filled an entire sketchbook but this time it was different because it was a daily thing so there was much more to flip through. Back in 2015 I hosted a monthly themed art practice on my blog and in 2017 a 52 pages one in a FB group. I think there was a second 52 pages one but I am not that sure anymore and besides, you get the idea, right? :) All these challenges ended up with a full sketchbook and every time I made it happen I was really really happy about it. I still am when I flip through them.
After this non-water-taking notebook I switched to watercolor Moleskine pocket sized sketchbooks. Those are really nice to use because one can use other media too, not just watercolors and the size is quite perfect - much smaller than the above notebook but still big enough to actually draw something a little bit detailed. Here’s what I’m talking about:

If you’re asking yourself what did I actually draw and if I didn’t get tired of it I can tell you, that I drew all sorts of things and yes, some days were more difficult or more challenging but because I had set all this creativity in motion I was able to push through and do SOMETHING everyday anyway.
Sometimes I would sketch/draw what happened on that day (in the evening), some days, I would carry the sketchbook with me and drew in it while being out with friends or having a cake somewhere. These are really nice to look back on because they show me where I was and what I experienced at that moment in time.

In 2021 I did a month of YouTube videos showing my morning art meditation. I sped my videos up significantly but you can see that I just played with colors and that honestly gave me a really nice and calming start into my day.
I kept my practice up for a while but then dropped it. I have no idea why but I did. And while it was nice to get a break from this daily thing “hanging over my head” that a voice in my head insisted on speaking bad about, I ended up getting more and more miserable every day.
I didn’t even notice it at first but slowly, I realized I miss my daily conscious creative time, my daily art meditation practice.
Even if I meditated every single day, not being creative made me fall back big time. So for me, I know I have to keep it up no matter what because this practice centers me and uplifts me as soon as I get into it. In does so in a different way than meditation does but I feel they do complement each other very well. So these days, I meditate first and then I sit down and just go for whatever drops into my head.
Sometimes, I close my eyes and pick up my wonderful ink brush pen and just doodle something on my page. When I look at it, I either add to it or just leave it because there IS a powerful energy in it and I know I connected to the bigger picture or my higher self and recieved a “message” that was meant to be drawn. And this makes all the difference during my day. I am definitely more content, grounded and prepared for whatever awaits for me.
Soooo, I hope I got you interested in this simple but powerful practice. Here are some things to keep in mind should you want to give it a try:
There are really no rules apart from showing up daily. But don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day because life happens. Just come back the next day. You will soon see that life gets better when you show up daily.
Take a smaller sized sketchbook, something with nice paper that will make you keen on using it. If you like drawing with wet media like watercolors or gouache then it’s best to have watercolor paper in your sketchbook. The one I really like using is made by Moleskine. There are two types and are called Watercolor Album and Watercolor Notebook. They both come in different sizes and I like using all of them although their A3 size hasn’t found me yet :) But for the daily practice, I had Pocket Sized ones which is 14 x 9 cm. If you like dry media, think colored pencils, ink pens, BIC pens etc, then something cheaper will do great too. I am quite pleased with Royal Talens 12 x 12 cm sketchbooks. They have yellow-ish paper that is really great for colored pencils and Micron pens for example. Currently, I am using their bigger sketchbook (13 x 21 cm) with bright white paper because I had it at home and it’s ok for what I do. It even takes a bit of watercolour - not without buckling - but I am now appreciating the whimsical fullnes and wonkiness of a filled up sketchbook.
Have your favourite art supplies and the sketchbook in one place so that you don’t search for them and can just sit down and start. Take a nice box and keep them there so that you can take it anywhere. When I was taking my sketchbook with me, I had a bigger pouch that held my pens and the sketchbook so that nothing got lost in my backpack.
There’s no time limit on this practice. It can take up a minute or an hour. You will KNOW when you’re done. Just try out different times during a day to see what suits you the most. This can be an evening before bed practice - much better than scrolling - or a morning routine. See how it goes and find your sweet spot.
Listen to your soul and experiment to your heart’s content. Use whatever you feel like using and just play. This is not about the end result but about the slowing down and being very present with what you’re doing. I like to draw in silence so that I can hear the marks I’m making. It is very soothing and it keeps me in the moment, it centers me and puts me in the now. What more could I ask for, right? But try to work with music if you feel like it, it’s all about doing what feels right to you.
I am open to hosting a weekly sharing post here on Substack. I think going with Notes (or is it Chat?) will be best as we can all share our pages under one post - just make a collage of them so they fit into one picture. We can also just share about how we’re doing and inspire each other to stick with this untill it becomes like brushing our teeth kinda thing :)
I am here for you and will happily cheer you on in your creative daily practice.
What say you? Would you like to join in? Do let me know in the comments and share this post with your friends please, it might just be the thing they are looking for. Thank you for reading and see you soon.
With much love,
♡
Nina
Thank you for the inspiration, Nina! Finally got myself a sketchbook just for daily practices... looks like it may be 'sketch only' because this paper weight isn't much - it MIGHT be able to hold a bit of water... but it's good to play with ink and pencils again.
Hi Nina, You are not only a creative artist but writer as well. I really enjoyed reading about your journey, exploring so many opitions for creative notebooks with various watercolours, pens, pencils etc. I'm very new to substack and don't really get the 'note' or 'chat' options, I just post on a note but seem to get into difficulty finding my posts lol. I do love to paint and draw but have been out of it for awhile cos I've been focusing on writing and so for me, it's my daily creative practice. This year my aim is 250 words a day and one would think that's not many words at all, yet my first real poem is 215 words. The nice thing about poetry is that there are no real word limits so I will go with the flow on writing what feels right. It's lovely to connect with you on Substack and thanks so much for following me as well. Sending you love and light 🩷