Anyway.
Ward-o-Matic has a great blog that I follow regularly (pluggity plug plug). His latest post is about moleskine sketchbooking and he's got great images posted. Pretty darn cool.
That got me thinking (bloggity blog blog) about my own sketching habits. Of course I've been sketching since I can remember, sometimes on paper and sometimes on appliances or furniture.
A universe ago when I started looking into animation as a career, I read tons of books and articles and forums on submitting portfolios to studios. Each one said pretty much the same thing: showing your sketchbook was crucial. Yikes. What to do? I didn't really have a sketchbook. I had napkins, Post-It® notes, envelopes, laser paper, newsprint pads, and whatever else stayed still long enough for me to get pen or pencil all over it. Shoes, binders, wood paneling, desk trim, Levi's, skin... nothing was safe. Unfortunately you can't put skin in a portfolio. Don't ask me how I know, you just can't. Or shouldn't.
I solved my problem easily enough at the time by pasting and copying my scraps into my portfolio pages. At some point I started working in animation, so it worked on some level.
I really envied my friend Avi, a fellow storyboard artist at the time. He always had his trusty sketchbook with him, creating weird and wonderful images from pencil, photos, and watercolor. It was a mess of a sketchbook but I admired that thing. I still had my scraps. My cubicle was covered in art projects created out of Starbucks bags (puppet), erasers, and paperclips (sculpture). All of my drawing went into my storyboards for the studio, so once that was done I needed a different creative outlet, I guess.
Carmen, our associate producer, gave all the storyboard artists square-ish spiral-bound sketchbooks once just 'cause (she was nice). That was really the first time in a long time I started containing my drawings again. This was 1999. That book still isn't full. Over the years I've picked up more books, some from Jenni and some just because they looked nice. I love paper and the books look cool, but somehow when I'm faced with the empty pages I blank out. Then, at a random moment (in a meeting, say) I will whip out a doodle like nobody's beeswax. Of course now I have a scrap of paper that I have to paste into my sketchbook. Oy.
Needless to say I have a shelf full of half-used sketchbooks and a file folder stuffed to the gills with scrappy doodles.
Last year I got a moleskine and I had high ambition for it. I started out documenting my childhood as a visual project. Then I abandoned that idea and took it camping to Shenandoah National Park. It's gone to Paris with me, too. I'm proud to say I actually used it. Thanks, Hemingway.
So I saw Ward's blog this morning and felt that same envy I felt with my pal Avi's book. What have I been doing with myself? I thought. I really need to discipline myself to whip that thing out instead of scratching on my To Do list.
I decided to pull together a few drawin's to post here. A copycat move, to be sure. But then again, what's all this bloggin' and internettin' about if we don't get inspired to respond?
Where would we be without a few juicy rationalizations every day? - Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill
Below are my heavily rationalized postings of my sketchity sketch sketchin.
The text reads Mental fish juggling. No, Sir, I don't know what I meant. On my To Do list.
One of the geeks that lives in my head. Scrappy scrap paper.
This lady gave me my coffee at Caribou a few weeks ago. I drew her later from memory. When I was there I was really struck by her hair and how awesome her spirally curls looked. Moleskine. Yay.
A couple views from Shenandoah camping.
My impression of my first visit to California in 1982. I was twelve. I was hooked.
When I was four, I had one of those plastic-from-a-box Halloween costumes from Kmart. It was Evel Kneivel and he was so cool to me. After Halloween I would still dress up in it and do daredevil things, like leap off the top of the stairs while my mom napped in her room. I don't remember hitting the bottom, just waking up later. I still think it was a good idea.
