…”But the sketchbook is more than a place for lively studies, a place where the artist may rehearse his private fantasies; it is also a record of his own relationship to the world. A sketchbook is the artist’s private diary of his inner progression; whether it is the simple notebook which Sir Francis Drake carried about with him to make little sketches of birds and trees which he saw during his travels, or the mountain of gigantic sketchbooks which Turner filled in his progress through Europe and his own inner being. There is usually more sense of the artist’s development and real gasp, of what is going on in his private world, in his sketches than in his finished work. The beauty of sketching is that under the pressure of trying to set something down quickly, perhaps to catch an effect of light or the movement of a street scene, the subconscious of the artist sometimes takes control, and a drawing is produced which the artist himself cannot really appreciate until some really considerable time after. Working at finished drawings very rarely allows this natural chemistry to take over – the sense of audience grips too tightly, and the artist does not “let go” in the right way.”…

                                                              Fred Gettings – Techniques of Drawing