A Year in Sketches: Reflections on My 2025 Daily Sketch Diary Project

https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4000887400212447

In 2025, I set myself an ambitious arts project: to complete one sketch diary entry every day for a full year. The result was a densely packed, emotionally honest body of work that documented not only creative experimentation, but also work pressures, political events, cultural moments, and changes in mental wellbeing.

This article reflects on that year-long sketch diary project — what emerged, what it meant, and how it has shaped the direction of my creative practice moving into 2026.

One Sketch a Day: Process and Practice

The sketch diary entries varied widely in theme, style, and intensity. Some weeks, sketches accumulated and were completed in batches at the end of the week. Other entries were more minimal and delicate, capturing fleeting moods or small visual responses.

The work moved fluidly between:

Narrative drawing
Pattern creation
Studies of natural forms
Abstract responses to news articles
Texture-based sensory explorations

Despite their variety, the images developed an interconnected visual language, with recurring motifs and emotional threads running through the diary.

Jacksons have a great range of drawing journals if you would like to work on your own for 2026.

Responding to News, Culture, and Events

Several sketches directly responded to current affairs and cultural moments. One notable sequence reflected on Glastonbury Festival, particularly its iconic Pyramid Stage during the Summer Solstice. The crowd was represented through dense dot-and-dash combinations, creating a heat-map effect that conveyed scale, movement, and energy.

The Pyramid Stage itself was decorated with symbolic imagery referencing political controversy surrounding a Kneecap performance, Irish nationalism, and the subsequent public debate. References to Worthy Farm, the date of an upcoming trial, and the band’s call for supporter attendance were woven subtly into the composition. At the time of drawing, the wider consequences and protests had not yet fully emerged, giving the image a sense of suspended tension.

Kneecaps controversial performance at Glastonbury Festival.

Work, Burnout, and Visual Metaphor

A significant portion of the sketch diary reflected my experience working in a particularly unpleasant call centre for much of the year. These images returned to recurring themes of control, fatigue, and sensory overload.

One repeated visual metaphor showed eyelashes replaced with dressmaker’s pins, embedded into the eyelids. This symbolised long hours spent staring at a digital screen, with little opportunity to move away, rest, or breathe. The surrounding pink and orange backgrounds heightened the sense of pain and strain, while star-like marks suggested dizziness, exhaustion, and endurance.

Later narrative images depicted my departure from the role, referencing humiliation, tyranny, and power imbalance. These drawings were some of the darkest in the diary — heavy, compressed, and emotionally charged.

Eye Strain

Change, Release, and Brighter Imagery

Following my exit from the call centre, the tone of the sketch diary shifted noticeably. The images became brighter, more celebratory, and more open, reflecting a positive change in mental wellbeing.

Colour palettes expanded, marks loosened, and compositions allowed more space. The diary became less about survival and more about observation, curiosity, and recovery.

Image Diary became much more colourful once Alison had finished working at the oppressive centre.

Reed offer a great course: Drawing and Illustration for Beginners which covers journaling.

Texture, Touch, and Sensory Drawing

Texture-based images were another recurring element throughout the year. One series explored touch and physical sensation, using layered strokes to suggest contact and pressure.

Thick black strokes represented fixed, definite contact
Orange strokes reinforced this solidity, slightly less defined
Fine pink lines connected the elements, acting as sensory bridges

These works focused less on representation and more on embodied experience — how touch feels rather than how it looks.

Touch and the Senses

Many of the drawings were completing using using twin markers varying tip size when necessary.

Sharing the Sketch Diary on Social Media

The project gained further momentum when I began sharing images on social media. Viewer responses, comments, and interactions became part of the process, adding another layer of dialogue and reflection to the work. This external engagement helped highlight recurring themes and validated the diary as both a personal and public creative record.

Looking Ahead: A Digital Sketch Diary for 2026

In 2026, the sketch diary will evolve into a fully digital project. All images will be created using Krita graphics software, allowing for new tools, textures, and workflows.

While the medium will change, the intention will remain the same:
to create visual responses to events, moods, observations, and discoveries across the year. The aim is to produce work that feels emotionally and conceptually connected to the 2025 diary, even as the process becomes digital.

Want to get started on creating your own digital artwork? The Touch Capacitive Stylus Pen is a great choice which you can use with your existing smart phone or tablet.

Final Thoughts

The 2025 sketch diary was intense, demanding, and deeply revealing. It documented stress, politics, work, recovery, and change — not as isolated events, but as interconnected experiences lived day by day.

Completing one sketch every day was not just an artistic challenge; it was a way of paying attention, surviving difficult periods, and recognising moments of growth. The diary now stands as a visual record of a year that shaped both my creative direction and personal resilience.

Pigs in Headphones

This article contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase — at no extra cost to you.

alisonlittleblog