Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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I came home from a week's holiday in Southwold convinced I hadn’t done enough sketching.

It had been Mrs Rayner’s big birthday, the family were all together, and there wasn’t time to disappear for hours drawing the pier or the lighthouse.

But when I opened my sketchbook, I realised I’d been drawing something else entirely.

Cafés. Conversations. Strange notices. A tattooed stranger. My granddaughter. A woman carrying everything to the beach. Tiny moments that would have disappeared if I hadn’t sketched them.

It made me wonder…

Is a sketchbook for making beautiful pictures, or is it for catching moments before they’re gone?

I’d love to know how you use your sketchbook. Let me know in the comments.

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0:00 I Thought I Hadn’t Sketched Anything
0:12 The Café That Started Everything
1:43 The Tattooed Man
3:00 On the Beach
4:30 The Beautiful Woman
5:32 Kids and Greyhounds
7:11 The Big Birthday
8:20 People on the beach
9:13 Why I didn't Draw The Lighthouse