Here’s some tips from a few artists about how to get yourself going with a sketchbooking (or notebooking) habit: Indian artists offer tips on how to start sketchbooking in 2020. I feel like my own sketchbook has been rather stagnant lately so I need to take some of these insights to heart! Mumbai-based artist Sameer … Continue reading How To Start Sketchbooking
As mentioned in a recent post about my daily carry notebooks, I’ve been using an extra Nolty diary to keep a scrapbook of interesting images, often artworks seen in the newspaper or a magazine, or sometimes just random clippings and bits of washi tape. A couple people have asked if I print out online images, … Continue reading 2019 Image Diary
A reader tipped me off to what looks like a really interesting book: In this richly illustrated book, readers will for the first time experience the diaries David Sedaris has kept for nearly 40 years in the elaborate, three-dimensional, collaged style of the originals. A celebration of the unexpected in the everyday, the beautiful and … Continue reading David Sedaris’s Diaries
I really miss the “Book by Its Cover” blog, especially the series of posts about sketchbooks. (The blog has been inactive since 2015 but the archives are still viewable.) Here’s a cool post I’d flagged a few years ago: Book By Its Cover » Sketchbook Series: John Garcia. I love this shot of John’s pile … Continue reading John Garcia’s Sketchbooks
Here’s something I came across on the website of the Morgan Library: This is the only surviving personal notebook of the French artist Édouard Manet (1832–1883). He used it in the early 1860s, when he was between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty, documenting aspects of his everyday life and work in the two years … Continue reading Édouard Manet’s Notebook
There’s an interesting exhibition of Turner’s watercolors at the Mystic Seaport Museum in CT. Of course, browsing in the museum shop is always half the fun, and I had a chance to flip through a book of Turner Sketchbooks: Buy at Amazon Here’s my favorite page: There were no intact Turner sketchbooks exhibited at the … Continue reading J. M. W. Turner Sketchbooks
I spotted this in the New York Times Magazine of November 17, 2019. It is one of the saddest, most infuriating, most shameful notebook pages I’ve featured, as it was drawn by a young man who was incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, and then ended up serving in the military … Continue reading Notebook Page from a Japanese Internment Camp
Architects create some of my favorite notebook and sketchbook pages. Here’s one I just loved, from a project by Smout Allen, a landscape architecture partnership. It’s scribbly and collage-y and I love the touches of color. Just gorgeous. See the original image and more description here: http://www.smoutallen.com/neo-natures-lanzarote
This is a really cool idea that I might have to try myself! Russell Stutler has been featured here before as a notebook addict. His website is a great resource for sketching inspiration, and he has done a deep dive testing popular pocket sketchbook brands, with Moleskine and Stillman and Birn among his favorites. But … Continue reading Russell Stutler’s Sketch Binder Notebook
I recently posted about artist Betye Saar’s sketchbooks. The article linked below from Hyperallergic is a great exploration of her work, with lots of sketchbook images. The sketchbooks reveal how Saar’s practice has evolved over time, and how time itself is a major thread in her work. Read more: Betye Saar’s Never-Before-Seen Sketchbooks Offer Deep … Continue reading More on Betye Saar’s Sketchbooks