I reley on sketchbooks (or sometimes napkins or the backs of old envelopes) to cook up new ideas, or refine images already in progress. If you're like me, you're curious about someone else's creative process, especially their starting point where they invent the new big thing. For me, I've settled on two kinds of sketchbooks to help me loosen up my thinking--and enhance my intuitive drawing skills. Below I've described each, with a few sample pages:
SKETCHBOOK I
The first, a wire bound sketchbook, is where I "play" in pen and wash and words to stretch my concepts of reality and create fresh ideas and imagery.
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I consider this sketch book a private paper playground where I record dreams, in words and pictures, write poetry...
carp of the anguishes of being, attempt to understand my being...
invent fantastical imagery...
toy with visual patterning and rhyme...
and draw real and imaginary people, places and creatures.
SKETCHBOOK II
The second sketchbook is my official date for a public outing. Typically, a 140-lb watercolor paper wire-bound journal, varying from hand-size to as large as I can carry into the world.
Here I draw "live" with a sumi brush, to capture life in motion--from performing artists, pedestrians, commuters and cafe dwellers
to a dog on the run or whatever steals my attention at that moment...
