Last week, I had a video call with Andrew James from Wellington, New Zealand. (Aside: Andrew is doing lots of fun reels at the moment on Instagram here and writes wonderful weekly articles on his Substack here.)

While we talked, I did some reflex sketching of the things on my desk.

The funny thing was that my desk was clear when we started the call (as I was prepping for a livestream inside my Travel Sketching course), but throughout the 2-hour conversation, my supplies came out and spread everywhere.

In a way, I was drawing the objects that were forming the negative space in this recent sketch (part of our Framing month inside my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon – see this article for more)

Although it was really fun to draw some of my current art supplies while talking to Andrew, I actually wanted to do an updated overall ‘deskscape’ so I could compare it with this sketch I did a year ago while talking to Suhita.

My filming desk is now surrounded by more art materials – mainly due to my weekly Patreon videos and all the mixed media work I’ve done in the past 18 months.

As I was writing this blog article, I realised that I have sketched my desk – my workspace – over the years, and it would be fun to Explore the Archives and put a little collection together. 

It’s quite topical as we’ve just finished a Group Event inside my Edges course and one of the exercises in the second half of the course was to draw our workspace, thinking about varying our lines.

This is a sketch of my computer workspace from my studio when I lived in Lindfield.

Another version of the same view (this one in watercolour) when I was using the wall behind my computer as a Kanban board. I no longer use this method (I’m not sure why!)

A quick, continuous line drawing of the stuff on my drawing/filming desk.

  
And another simplified version, which also included one of my light boxes, my overhead camera and an everyday lamp, all overlapping.

Note: I looked through my sketches from 2020 and 2021 (the lockdown years) expecting to find many sketches of my desk, but was surprised there were only a few. I mainly sketched individual objects.

Here is a fun sketch made at my filming desk to record all the cameras I used for my Sketchbook Design course. I filmed all those videos myself.

And the inset on this page documents all the positions. Note: the border around this inset is not the size of the room. It was a small space, but not that small!

Going deeper into the archives…

Here a few sketches from a previous home, where I had an unusual  L-shaped studio

Out of interest, this is where I filmed my Foundations, Edges and Buildings courses.

Here is the view of my computers and drawing board from the ‘comfy chair’ position.

A more detailed view of my computer – including a teacup and teapot with a cosy on the side!

This sketch ended up on the cover of a book! I wrote two chapters in this book – one of them was all about sketching workplaces.

I can’t look at the above layout of my studio without getting a bit emotional about my huge drawing board and left-handed drafting machine. I loved my left-handed drafting machine so much!

The board was too big, so we cut it down, making the drafting machine useless. And now it’s in storage, as I don’t have room for even the reduced-size drawing board and stand.

Here is an even older sketch (from 2011) showing my full-size board and machine in action. 

While thinking about my architectural background, let’s go even deeper into the archives…

The last few sketches were done in the office when I worked full-time as an architect – these seem a lifetime ago. It is, in fact, 14 years since I left, so some of these sketches are older than that!

Let’s start with my tea-drinking habits in the office.

Even though I hadn’t quite become a full-time teacup-and-saucer user back then, I always made myself a pot of tea with loose-leaf tea.

And by the time I did this sketch, I was using a teacosy on that pot. Lots of other little work memories prompted by this rough sketch.

I love the notes included on this page. 

We didn’t have a dedicated secretary, and we all took turns answering incoming calls but for some reason, I sat at the desk with the switch. We all worked in one room, so I didn’t need all the extra functions and never transferred a call.

And the last one is a little dramatic. It’s more of a nightmare than a nice memory! 🙂

It’s been really fun to put this article together! While I’ve been going down my own personal memory lane, you have probably been noticing the changes in my sketching style. 🙂

It’s been a good reminder to sketch complete ‘deskscapes’ more often, not just individual objects, since the main elements and layout of my workspaces constantly change.

There is something special about the memories that everyday sketches bring back… and the more boring and mundane the subjects, the more interesting they become as the years go by.

How often do you draw your workspace?