Discover how Stig Legrand found art, mindfulness, and community through daily sketch journaling inspired by Domestika courses
For Stig Legrand, a Domestika enthusiast, creating an illustrated daily journal started as a simple project and grew into a life-changing practice. With influences from renowned artists and courses, Stig has turned everyday moments into vibrant visual stories, blending gratitude, art, and reflection. Her journey reminds us that even small creative steps can lead to transformative experiences.
What initially inspired you to start an illustrated daily journal, and how did you keep yourself motivated to continue this practice for three years?
I first heard about sketchbooking and illustrated journaling through Domestika. Even though I always liked illustrated travel journals from various artists, I didn’t know I had it in me to want to draw this much and share personal stories this way.
I begun Domestika courses with Mattias Adolfsson’s “The Art of Sketching”, then first tried watercolor with different teachers, discovered wonderful artists that I learned so much from, and one day in 2021, I came across Kate Sutton’s “Illustrated Life Journal: A Daily Mindful Practice”. I did the exercises she had devised, drawing tables loaded with what we ate, cutting up short stories into squares, picturing things that inspired me…
In the end, I prepared my course Project, and little did I know that it would snowball into this daily rendez-vous that deeply changed my life in these three last years.
Actually, I don’t have to keep myself motivated. It has become an essential part of my life without my noticing. The only problem is that it takes a few hours each day, so I would love to have a PAUSE button on my timeline, to be able to use extra time for other creative ideas…
But compiling these gratitude moments is important and therapeutic for my balance. Due to health problems, I don’t go out much, or see people, so drawing the moments that I find precious at home allows me to share my outlook, to build a memory of life at Maison Legrand.
It isn’t the same with photography, even though I use a lot of photos to capture the look of these moments. Drawing is an alchemy that materializes my singular perspective into a personal artistic production, with its flaws, its qualities, its uniqueness.
And it sharpens my perception of the intensity of life’s little moments!
Can you walk us through your creative process? How do you decide what to illustrate each day?
First, there always is a delay of 5 to 6 days between real-time and the moment I draw a page. I like to keep it that way as it gives me a buffer, and time to settle my feelings. I keep a journal of written notes where I jot down moments when I felt conscious, or poetic, or touched by events, or even distraught. I also take lots of photos to help me remember how it felt and how it looked. It can be pictures of our 7 cats being sweet or
silly, of recipes that I just prepared, or how I felt freshly dressed in the morning, what music I listened to…
When I am in front of the blank page, I always begin by writing at the top a title that comes from Kate Sutton’s course : «Today, I’m grateful for». It’s like a magic formula but it’s also true to my purpose.
Then, I look at my notes and photos, to remember everything and select what will end up in the illustration of the day. Most of the time, I have to trim things down, I’m lucky to have so much to be grateful for, or items I want to share.
When I have chosen the elements, I imagine them assembled on paper, I give them each a space in my mind, and often, I run my fingertips over the page, to kind of press them there symbolically. Then I first draw a light sketch in graphite (Faber Castell, and Pentel Graphgear 1000). I would like to be able to skip this part and draw directly with fineliners and color, like lapin encouraged us to do in his courses; it felt so liberating… I know I would also gain much time, and hone my skills for urban sketching which takes place in a tighter timeframe… But I’m still too line-shy somehow and can’t always find ways to play around obvious mistakes. Yes, I use an eraser.
When I’m done with the graphite, I use fineliners to ink the illustration. My favorites are Uni Pin in Dark Grey, Black and Light Grey, my most common weight is 0.5, but for details I go down from 0.1 to 0.003 ! One must remember that my Carnet de gratitude sketchbook is small (9x14cm, Art Creation by Talens). This is the perfect size for this project, even though details become really very tiny and my eyes aren’t this sharp anymore. Sometimes, I try to zoom with my fingers just like on a screen… LOL
Then I add color last. I use water-based Tombows and Lyra brush pens. I like to blend colors on makeshift palettes, to mix shades, lighten them, and create color gradients. When color is finished, I sometimes add shadows with graphite blurs and highlights with gel pens.
Then I photograph the page, always on the same table. I like to keep a coherence and try to have the same light, setting, etc. But it’s amateurish compared to what industry artists do when they maintain a graphic charter.
Another of my kinks for this project is to keep the same color for my little sketchbooks covers, a light blue, called Fresh Mint. I have bought many in advance but am already finishing the 6th.
