Sketchbooks present pupils and teachers with an excellent opportunity to share their creative learning journeys, and inspire others to action.

Here are some ideas about displaying sketchbooks, to encourage a more active and therefore engaging display.

• A sketchbook corner: Try REALLY HARD not to dismantle sketchbooks! Instead think about them as OBJECTS and think how you can display them as exhibits which can be touched. Think less about traditional ways of displaying artwork, and more about creating a corner or table which in itself creates a sense of visiting, sitting, enjoying – use cushions, a rug, a chair, a pile of sketchbooks… Allow the audience to respectfully interact with the sketchbooks.

• Create a sketchbook “wall”: If some of your sketchbook work has been created on separate sheets of paper, compile a sketchbook wall. Don’t make it neat and tidy; don’t feel the need to mount pages to display them – keep it what it is – a series of thoughts. This kind of display might seem more like the wall in a working artist’s studio. It will be far more interesting and energetic that way. Keep the phrase “Be Journeyful” in your head as you curate the display.

• Show context: If your sketchbooks were used to further another activity – e.g. design or research for another art project, display all elements together so the context of the sketchbook can be seen.

• Think about sharing digitally: explore google slides or other digital galleries to share sketchbooks with a wider audience. You might even choose to embed sound files to add a voice to the display.

• If possible display pupils sketchbooks alongside sketchbooks from creative practitioners – including teachers.

• Empower the pupils to decide on the display – take the opportunity to encourage more self-directed experiences / group discussion.

• Always think about how you can enable activity in the audience… Give your audience access to materials so they can write down their ideas, and start getting into the sketchbook habit themselves – inspired by your display!

“I do have a painless approach to amassing collections of sketches. I often draw on anything to hand; bus tickets, wrapping paper or writing pads. These get taped up onto my ‘inspiration’ wall in my studio alongside all of my art postcards. These little ad hoc drawings eventually get pasted into a ‘scrapbook sketchbook’; which has become a loving collection of mementoes from those pockets of time in between making the tea and washing up, where I capture my life on a small scrap of paper found in the recycling bin. All of these scrapbooks and sketchbooks are my visual diaries.” Emma Davies

This is a sample of a resource created by UK Charity AccessArt. We have over 1500 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.

AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.

We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.

Jonathan Ford, sculptor, shares his sculptors sketchbooks.

“All drawings were part of the evolution of Meth V, a creature who now lives at the Jerwood Sculpture Park. Processes involved the collection of boxes & boxes of images from magazines, books and pamphlets. The images were then cut with scissors and drawn onto or transformed into part of Meth V. No scanning or computer involvement was used for these images.”