Significant Sketchbook

Good-looking poor city boy with a heart of gold - and he draws too!

Bob and Alice are just getting to know each other, and go to get coffee. While Alice excuses her self to use the washroom, Bob notices a sketchbook sticking out of her bag. Curious, he carefully tries to get a look inside. He catches a glimpse of drawings of what appear to be Alice's pet dog, her friends, her typewriter - and several of him. Alice returns and sees him peeking at the sketchbook. Bob apologises, but Alice doesn't mind, and they begin to bond over the drawings.

This is often done to show a hidden side of a character, or the sketchbook or one of the sketches may be a Chekhov's Gun. The main contents of the sketchbook, or the drawings/paintings if they are on loose sheets of paper, could have significance to the plot, but more often than not it's to try and add a hidden dimension and to have one character attempt to understand another better.

The Significant Sketchbook can also be significant in any other number of ways - it could be a MacGuffin (like the Grail diary was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). It could reveal a hidden detail that the hero didn't earlier know about the central quest or adventure, when inspected by another character who spots what the hero always missed. In some more visual storytelling mediums such as film, TV and comic books, the sketchbook could serve as a notebook in which a character may record clues or observations, but pictures always look nicer than just lines of words. Generally, this is with a sketchbook or with pictures and drawings in a notebook, but occassionally happens with lines of code or cryptic words mixed in with the drawings.

If the sketches are all about a single person, it could become a case of Stalker with a Crush, and the drawings could be the audience's first clue. If a Creepy Child is in possession of such a sketchbook, it could become a Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book.

Examples of Significant Sketchbook include:

Anime & Manga

Love Hina has the main character Keitaro own a sketchbook in which he draws pictures of beautiful girls, including his Harem. One of the girls, upon deciding she likes him, sketches a potrait of Keitaro in his book as a gift for him.
Sai's sketchbook from Naruto. Sakura tries to ask him about it to get to know him, but it only kind of works.
And of course Sketchbook, about the everyday lives and simple joys of the members of a school art club who sketch in their...sketch...books.
In Detective Conan, on the Hatamoto Family arc, one member of the family draws sketches of his recently married cousin. He's the murderer, as he hated his grandfather for refusing to allow him to marry her and her fiance for taking her away, and killed the formed and tried to frame the latter.

Film

The most well-known movie sketchbook and the one in the picture arguably belongs to Jack Dawson. In Titanic, Rose first sees Jack as he is sketching on the deck, and he shows her some of the drawings. Later, there is the famous scene where she requests that Jack sketch her in the nude (her, not Jack).
D.E.B.S.. Amy is an aspiring artist. One scene shows her drawing a picture of her girlfriend Lucy while in class, which shows she's still attracted to her even though their relationship is forbidden. When she sees another student looking at the picture she gets embarrassed and closes the book.
The Maiden Heist has three museum guard main characters who are all obsessed with their respective favourite art pieces, and manifest this in different ways. Charles (Morgan Freeman), sketches and paints reproductions and studies of the Dutch Golden-age Baroque Vermeer-seque painting "Young Woman With Cats", and his apartment wall his covered with such work.
Eagle Eye has Jerry Shaw make sketches of his pet dog, and he puts them up on his wall as the dog lies under the table nonchalant.
In the new Liam Neeson-starring thriller Unknown, Martin Harris seeks shelter in Gina the taxi driver's house. He sees a sketchbook and begins to try looking at it, but she snaps at him frustrated and snatches the sketchbook back.
Seymour in Ghost World discovers Enid's sketchbook at one point, and feels crushed when he sees a portrait of himself portrayed as depressing and alone.
At the end of American Psycho, Patrick Bateman's secretary finds his planner, which is filled with horrifying sketches of women being tortured, maimed and dismembered.
The movie Spiral features an introverted artist who obsesses over a woman and draws her over and over again.
The Lovely Bones- The sketchbook gives away Susie's murderer when her sister sees it.
In Fanboys, Eric has abandoned his dream of becoming a comic book artist to work for his dad as a used car salesman. However, he still often sketches and draws intricate comic-book-style art - and that's our clue that working at his Dad's establishment is not what he really wants.
In The Way Back, artist Tomasz trades erotic sketches with thugs for food in the Gulag. During the long trek, he never stops drawing, and does several sketches of Irena (the orphaned Polish girl they pick up along the way) as she sleeps. Towards the tail-end of the journey, the surviving team members go over his drawings and remininsce. Tomasz dies, and is buried with his pencil hanging from the cross that marks his grave.
In Paul, Graeme does several sketches on the road, including one of Paul flipping the bird. He ends up illustrating Clive's book about Paul, and had earlier illustrated a comic book written by Clive.

Interactive Fiction

The only way to get One Hundred Percent Completion in Jigsaw is to locate and sketch animals from throughout history in a sketchbook found at the beginning of the game. The final location in the game hosts an animal-sketching competition.

Literature

In The Demon's Covenant, Mae goes through her boyfriend's sketchbook, and finds that it contains nothing but sketches of her brother.

Live Action Television

In an episode of Doctor Who, the Doctor temporarily becomes human and dreams of his adventures as a Time Lord, drawing/recording them in a journal.
- Earlier on, an artist in a French cafe spontaneously sketches the Doctor's beautiful Time Lady companion, Romana. The final sketch shows her with a clock for a head, which the Doctor comments is a good likeness.

Webcomics

In Megatokyo, Piro accidentally leaves his sketchbook behind in a comic-store, and a girl finds it and tries to return it to him, apparently falling for him in the process - it's mostly filled with manga-style drawings, and she admires the emotional way he draws his female characters. (She gets mostly forgotten by the story when things pick up between Piro and his future girlfriend, though.)

Video Games

Chidori's sketchbook, although never explicitly shown inside, is a gauge of her personality in Persona 3.
The defendant of case 4 of Ace Attorney Apollo Justice is a shut-in and Ambigiously Autistic. She uses her sketchbook to indicate moods or subjects.
In the Adventure Game version of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, a mute character communicates by writing in a small notebook. Near the end of the game you have the option to ask him what he'll do when the notebook runs out. He doesn't know.
The 1980s video game The Eidolon has a sketchbook for a manual, showing illustrations of the various creatures and traps encountered by the last person to use the eidolon.