Wednesday 26 October 2011

harvest an idea

a snap from the i-photo stash
Recently I was being interviewed for an article and interviewer asked, 'do you keep a sketch book?'... long pause, 'Well yes, kind of... I have a little book in my bag that I scribble in with black biro... the scribbles make sense to me, but definitely nobody else'.
I got to thinking about this because I used to love filling sketchbooks with drawings, colourful snippets and ideas. A habit from my art school days when the sketchbook was a tool for processing thoughts. Our drawing tutor also drummed into us that we couldn't expect to understand shape unless we stopped to really look and explore things with our eyes.
To be fair, I also have in my bag an amazingly small digital camera and i-photo folders full of 'eye candy' snaps that I use for inspiration, is that virtual sketch booking?
I love buying sketch books, can't resist the promise of a new one with all those lovely creamy empty pages. Promise that one day I will fill them, then off they go, into the box with all the others.
Just to remind myself, I dug out some old, filled sketchbooks and was amazed at the energy and colour I'd poured into them, a little bit nostalgic too for the days when I had time to start each project with a good long sketchbook filling session.
Then the brain played the 'what if' trick, what if you started with a really small sketch book, what if you got back into using one, what if you just, like, sat down and did a drawing for the first time in forever?
So with some acorns and oak leaves gathered on my woodland walk it was out with the crayons, watercolours wetted down at the ready and a whole afternoon later my first little page is done.
Why Acorns?
first 15x15cm sketchbook... filled!
I'll show you tomorrow...