Hope you are all well and not too wet and soggy after the miserable weather we are having!
After all the madness of the past months (my 1st craft stall, working 4 jobs and squeezing in my 'colouring' whenever I can) I decided it was time of a few days off. What do you do when you have time off? Retail therapy of course! So I hopped on the train to Plymouth only to remember how stressful clothes shopping is, returning instead with a few bars of chocolate and a fabulous book called An Illustrated Life by Danny Gregory. Full of images from the private sketchbooks of creatives, this colourful and varied compilation inspired me, and put a smile back on my face.
The artists that really appealed within were Mattias Adolfsson (his neat and considered sketchbook compositions and quirky characters are beautiful), Danny Gregory, Noah Z. Jones, Tommy Kane & Elwood Smith. Elwood's sketchbooks contain a collection of characters quickly drawn on various bits of paper and later stuck. This made me realize its not necessary to carry round a sketchbook - I find it hard to remember my phone and keys when I go out!
At this stage I have to admit I haven't really kept 'proper' a sketchbook for the past 2 or 3 years! Terrible I know, but I tend to do work spontaneously, here and there on bits of paper, or from one sketch book to the next. Shamefully, I haven't kept a regular sketchbook (just for the sake of it) since university! I like to get on and create whatever final image I have in my head, but this takes longer than anticipated (due to my lack of experimentation & planning) so I think it's a good idea to start up a sketchbook again.
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| An insight into the way I work... messy sketchy pages and paper |
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| Quick Space Mice sketch ( for my nephew Josh) |
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| Final image |
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I've bought a hardback sketchbook, using one end for recording my RANDOM THOUGHTS ( I have many throughout the day, as you will see), and the other PROJECTS. The first mark in an empty book is always the hardest, but once I decide to not worry about the outcome so much, my 'random thoughts' are captured, and safely stored away for when I need them. Here is a crazy thought I can share with you that came to me whilst cleaning. Note the post-it note scrawled quickly whilst at my cleaning job - just enough information for me hang on to the idea until I get home.
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| post-it... |
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...to sketchbook... |
Well that,s all for this post. Hope you enjoyed my ramblings. I will be back soon with more sketchbook goodness. Floral project to start me thinks!
PS. In the meantime if you want to see more of my illustrations you can visit my facebook page or my website. Oh and I'm on twitter to!
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