WHAT IS IT ABOUT SKETCH BOOKS?
The other day, whilst traveling, I finished another sketchbook. I have completed 35 in the last twenty years, which works out to 3,000 drawings. What is it about sketchbooks?
The books themselves, the paper and binding are lovely to handle, whatever the style, weight of paper and covers and the more a book is handled the better it looks. People give me different books as presents and I think, ‘ugh! I never get used to this one (because it wasn’t like the last one) and then, of course, having worked between its leaves for a while, it becomes a treasured possession.
Well they serve several purposes – drawing practise is the first.
Paul Klee said that drawing was taking a line for a walk. I think that drawing is like practising piano scales - it keeps your hand in and your eye fresh. When I have not drawn for some time the work appears very stilted, almost uncomfortable, this is in marked contrast to the final few days of a two week holiday when you can hardly put a mark wrong!
Drawing as recording happens on holidays or business trips.
Six or more drawings each day are underpinned with thoughts and observations which are normally written in the evening over a glass of wine. The narrative can become very acerbic:
Extract
Derya Villa – Kaş Turkey
All very peaceful first thing then this morning Mr., who is also staying here emerged from his family apartment, telling everyone of the bus’s early arrival. “Bugger it” said Mr. T-L-B-S’s chum! We first encountered Talk-Loud-But-Slowly on our arrival at the Villa, he was at the bar asking for a new light bulb: “It’s a HAL-LOW-GEN light bulb he bawled at the man behind the bar, who then proceeded to panic and gibbered in Turkish to his chum, who, in turn, scurried to a store room for a HAL-LOW-GEN light bulb. All sorted, obviously another victory for ‘the I shout, you understand me’ school of linguistics.
Sketch Book as companion and faith-keeper;
I have a great job which allows me to travel all over the world – a lot. The downside is that traveling eats into edges of the weekends and painting time. So making marks on business trips, sneaking out of the hotel to draw before breakfast, arriving early 10 minutes for a meeting to enable a drawing is an important way to keep at it and ensure ‘art’ retains its important role in my life.