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Wednesday, July 12, 2017


The Cover (so far) of the book I'm compiling of my sketches/drawings done between 2009 and 2017


My sketch pads have sketch pads.  The height of the filled sketchpad pile amazed me a couple of weeks ago when I went to add another and get a new one for my daily sketch sessions.  I thought, "Something should be done".

While I have been an inconsistent painter, I have been a prolific sketcher.  Black and white has always been more comfortable. The simplicity of pencils, drawing pad and a knead eraser is appreciated.   A sculptor by training and a builder by trade, color was always a secondary consideration, an embellishment of a sound foundation. Strong drawing skills are the foundation of fine art paintings.  In the iPad Store I found a book publishing app, BookPress.  I downloaded it and began going about organizing the format.

Got A Minute? Sketch is the title of the sketching group I started on Facebook.  Membership is by invite only.  I closed the group because I wanted only artists who knew what a sketch was and didn't confuse it with full fledged, pretty illustrations housed in book form.  A sketch is a working tool.  It is a first impression of a subject.  It is the means for discovering what was so exciting about that subject to want to draw it.  It is a tool of discovery, not only of the relationships between lines, points and planes, but of possible meaning.  Sketching is a way of thinking.  I've been thinking in sketches since I started blogging in 2009.  I've been sketching all my life.

One of my problems is I think too much.  It shows in my sketches.  Many of them come very close to the line between a sketch and a drawing.  The only thing that keeps them sketches is their lack of finish--perhaps because finish is unobtainable in an art piece.  "Finish" is finished, past tense, lifeless, static.  Everything is nailed down with no room to breathe. The beauty in sketches is they are open to possibilities.  




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