ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how sketchbooks can aid development of a personalized approach to drawing and to visual thinking. It highlights the media-tension caused by the Australian Government to cage off most of the city, limiting the population's movements with extra police and members of the armed forces. Sketchbooks have allowed the author to document news and current affairs in ways that are distinctly different from those available to a lens-media or text-based journalism. There is still recognition of the place of sketchbooks in reportage, and particularly as used by war artists during the World Wars and subsequent conflicts, yet this process is open to replacement by photography. In the end, the process of drawing in a sketchbook at times for the author has been a way of experiencing pure adrenaline. The sketchbook provides a unique environment to develop visual thinking. It blurs the lines between formal academic approaches to drawing.
