Milly Greer dates every page

Every page Milly Greer makes has a date on it. "All of my pages are dated. This is really important to me," she says. "I can tell you exactly what day something was made, even 10 years ago."

She calls herself a sketchbook gremlin. On Instagram, 139,000 people follow the books she fills with birds, strangers on trains, shells, fish and whatever she saw that day. She paints, illustrates and makes prints. But the sketchbook is the work, and she keeps every one.

She answered our questions by email. Here she is in her own words.

Year 3 art club

"I have always loved art for as long as I can remember (so cliché I know)," she says. In Year 3 she joined the after-school art club, once a week. "I was devastated when I moved into Year 4 and there wasn't an art club for that year."

The sketchbook was always her way in. "I got into drawing through sketchbooks so I guess sketchbooking has always been my thing!" She started taking her spreads seriously in college and sharing them for fun online, around 2021. "But I only started seeing serious reach and success in 2023."

Sketchbook gremlin

The name came out of a bio that needed updating. "At some point having your age at the top of your page stops becoming a flex haha," she says.

"Sketchbooker" didn't sound right, and "sketchbook artist" felt too narrow. So she went with gremlin. "I love sketchbooks, I tell other people they need them, and I hoard all of my old ones."

Every page is dated

The date is the last thing to go on. It's a habit she started early, and one she looks forward to while she's finishing a page.

“It is a beautiful form of time keeping unique to me.”

The words on her pages are mostly captions now, she says: an artist or object she studied, or the species of bird she painted. But anything can go in. "I've never been afraid of gluing in receipts, notes from friends, and quotes from books or posts I'd like to see again."

They do two jobs. "They're great for filling spaces where I can't be bothered to draw. They're also wonderful keepsakes of their era from which they are taken."

Why she won't sell an original

That's why the books stay with her. "All of my sketchbook pages mean something to me," she says. "Each is a time capsule of a period of my life and experiences... even (maybe especially) the bad ones."

The pages that did well online matter in their own way. "They are the foundation of my career and success, so I think of those ones extra fondly."

“I feel very attached to all of my personal work and so I don't like to sell any originals. That's why I make so many prints.”

The life list

Most of her work comes from her day. A couple of years ago she took up bird spotting, casually, "so naturally I started to paint birds."

"I always find it exciting to paint a new bird I have added to my life list," she says. The more she learns, the more she's hooked. "I am fascinated by how intelligent they are and in awe of how they are completely unlimited in the way they can move through the world because they can fly (well most of them)."

Mostly intuition

How does she choose between painting, illustration and printmaking? "Mostly intuition!" she says. Some subjects just look better one way. And each one costs something different. "It depends on how much effort I'm ready to put in and what I picture to look best in my mind."

Snail mail

Every month she puts together an envelope of art and posts it out. "I think snail mail is the best thing to happen to artists in this generation!" she says.

It isn't the first mail art, she says, but it may be the biggest. "Snail mail allows people to be included in fine art for an affordable price, and support artists they love from far away."

For the artist, it's more than income. "For artists, snail mail is their curated community, a place where their work is championed, and an opportunity to make a living."

“It brings me a lot of joy knowing how many people look forward to receiving their envelope.”

What the Master's taught her

She only studied art at Master's level. "Which doesn't teach you any formal art skills," she says, "but equips you to critique your work, make connections between big themes, and be ambitious about your ideas."

"Studying art didn't change what kind of art I make, only how to make it more thoughtful."

What people want to watch

With that many people watching, we asked what she's learned about making things they want to see. "The more you post, the more you understand what people want to see," she says.

The making isn't the whole job. "It's just as important to format a video/post so that people enjoy it, not just consider whether the thing you are making is consumable."

Take the urge seriously

We asked what she'd tell someone who thinks they're not a creative person. "Everyone has a degree of creativity inside them," she says.

Everyone makes creative choices every day, she says: where the food sits on the plate, what to wear to the office or a birthday or coffee, the order of the pictures in a post, "and which colour pen do I want to write with?"

Not feeling creative is fine, if you're happy with that. "It's a different story if you don't think you are but you want to be."

“It's time to start listening to your creative urges and impulses and taking them seriously, even if they feel a bit uncomfortable.”

See more of Milly's sketchbooks on Instagram at @millydoesgood, and find her prints and snail mail at linktr.ee/millydoesgood.