Getting back to Drawing: SketchCrawls

By Lynne Chapman

Lots of us illustrators don't really draw any more. We draw as part of our work, we might sketch as part of research for a book, or to create a character, but many illustrators haven't gone out with a sketchbook, just for the joy of it, since college. 


I rediscovered sketchbook drawing a few years ago and have never looked back. The fun and freedom of exploration and experimentation, of drawing for no other purpose than being in the moment, is exhilarating after years of drawing illustrations to commission.

I now run a group called SketchCrawl North, which has members from Sheffield, Hull, Manchester etc. We go out for day trips to various locations to share a love of drawing, and to inspire and learn from one another. The excellent film Mark Lomas has made, of our recent SketchCrawl at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, really captures the idea. Take a look:

Contact me if you fancy giving it a go with us. If you love drawing but are too far from us or from an existing group, try getting together with a couple of friends and starting your own SketchCrawl group. Here are some tips to get you started and help you organise a day.

Other things that might be of interest are my top tips on how to draw people in public places, and my film about my sketchbook work, on the film page of my website. Power to your pencils!

Sketchbook project: on tour in the U.S.

By Anne-Marie Perks

In this post I thought I would share a peek into the sketchbook I submitted for Sketchbook Project 2011. The theme I chose was Nighttime Stories. I knew I wanted to work in black and white with touches of one or two colours, and I knew that I wanted a narrative thread to hold it all together.

At right is one page of my storyboard thumbnails outlining the theme loosely to a Native American myth on bringing the first light to the world.



In this tale, animals and people could change between being human or animal at will and the moon was a woman who hung upside down in the sky. Above, the ravens love their blackness and wish to keep the world dark.


An interesting challenge was to show the human form connected to their animal forms. Here, the Wolf People want warmth and light and are dressed in their wolf skins.

Above, the confrontation between Raven and Wolf as Moon Woman looks on. Wolf had gone to Moon Woman to ask how they could bring light to the world.

The battle between the Ravens and Wolf to free Moon Woman's brother, the Sun from the cave they had imprisoned him in.

Interestingly, 28,839 blank sketchbooks were sent out from the Art House Co-op and just under 10,000 sketchbooks were sent back. These books will be kept in a permanent collection at the Brooklyn Library, cataloged and each has an ISBN number. It is amazing to think of original art being something you can check out. Currently, the exhibit has been in Brooklyn, New York and Austin, Texas - next stop Portland, Maine. By the time the tour wraps up at the end of July 2011, the exhibit will have been all across the United States. A tour diary is on the website along with the portfolios and sketchbook submissions of all the artists that participated. It has been truly exciting to be part of this project reminding me that I can do a lot of work in a short amount of time when needed. Follow the link to see more of my sketchbook.

Sketchbook!

By Paul Morton

Between commissioned work I like to find time for using my sketchbook/notebooks. I've always carried one of these with me ever since leaving college and it sometimes becomes my second brain.

Ideas are jotted down and developed, stored like in Dumbledore's pensive, and surprisingly re-discovered and used years later.

At the moment I want to draw children, and in particular one little boy for a wordless Picture Book I'm working on, set in a garden.

I need to draw and draw until the shape of the limbs, the folds and bulk of the clothes and the expressions, come naturally to me.

These are some early examples from the last 2 weeks, I've a long way to go before becoming close to Shirley Hughes!