Is there anyone else participating in the Community Sketchbook group who uses their sketchbook as a tool for ideas that will be translated into other media? I don’t mean the almost now standardized “art journal” that everyone is doing with the pointy crowned children, precious “sayings” and saccharine sameness. I’m not interested in having pages that are created to be the end result, rather I need a demonstrable tool to learn with, experiment and collect research in. Working in 2 dimensions is problematic when you're thinking of three dimensional, but some of the planning works because I’m still envisioning it in my head even if it’s flat on the page. Some developments are a natural adjunct as intrinsically, fabric is as paper, until it’s been manipulated. I’ve wondered what sort of pages and subjects a sculptors sketchbook would include!
I've kept sketchbooks for 30 some years now. Most of them are pretty spare with scribbles and really rough sketches in thumbnail form--no one else would "see" what I see in the jots. :} The only time I ever did more work in their pages was while I was in Cap College's Textile Arts program (North Vancouver BC)—-it was a required process in the program, and I loathed "wasting" time on them when i could actually be making the pieces!
I remember having a heated discussion with several readers when I had first started blogging, about the value of a well kept visual journal. My point was that I would never see the import of having a workbook as beautifully crafted as the piece I was planning out; their point was that the sketchbook was an art form unto itself. My sketchbook(s) never will be made just to stand as on its/their own, but I have come around to realizing that it is a valuable tool to develop the ideas. Maybe it's also because I am older now and more sure of what I want to say and have SO many ideas that they HAVE to be kept track of in a more detailed way! (You know I even dream of my art now? In my sleep, ideas foment and bubble, and some mornings I grab that sketchbook and just smoke it with notes and scratchy drawings!)
Most of my work is either from “memory” or something I have “invented.” Though others may interpret more realistically, my sketchbook is becoming a compendium of stitched, collaged, painted, scribbled and notated but now recognizable subjects. They are still how I see/sense/intuit a particular object or subject, but as a tool they are also becoming more documentary for others.
Do you create from “inside” or are you an “en plein air” artist? Do you sketch just to sketch? Do you invent? Are your drawings a vehicle to express other ideas or techniques and mediums? Are they for collaborative purposes? WHY do you keep a sketchbook?
