Sketchbooks and Sketchpiles

Sketchbooks are like diaries, in a way. I've never kept a diary or a journal. Blogs are as close to that as I've come. And I'm sure somebody somewhere has deeper thoughts about blogs as public diaries and open journals. But sketchbooks are similar but different. Sketchbooks are a visual document showing how artists skills develop and change. The images themselves don't live in a vacuum. Visuals are taken from other images, other artists. It's theft, but it's not. I draw Mickey Mouse, but I change it, explore the construction, take the image apart and play with it. Until it's not Mickey Mouse any more. It's something new. This visual re-invention and evolution is the interesting part. It's how you can gauge an artist's growth. Or how they stagnate, and stop being interesting.

I'm going to annotate the pages in Sketchpile. My thinking is that the notes explaining the impetus behind the images will enhance your understanding of what I was trying to accomplish. I hope.

Long ago I stopped initialing and dating my sketches. It seemed like a vanity, and pointless considering my level of skill at the time I stopped. It was more important to me to draw more and more then to waste time leaving a mark or a date on the page. Putting together these pages I wish I'd had dated some of the material, if only to give myself a signpost of where I was when I was there. But the breadcrumbs are all gone. I have an approximate idea when these drawings were made, and that will have to do. Regrettably.

I've decided to use The Sketchpile project to make calendars at Lulu, too. But first I need to make a damn PDF for Lulu to print from.