Scenes From The Past: Revisiting My Old Sketchbooks...

I highly recommend you dig through that stack of old sketchbooks collecting dust in your closet. Who cares if you think they're all filled with crap... dig through them anyway. All of the work I'm about to post is unfinished and in the past I would have been embarrassed to display it to anyone. That being said, I'm a different person now. I am amazed at how a peek at my old doodles were like a glimpse into my old thought process.


- A random sketch page... there is no rhyme or reason to the lines and scratches really... I would just doodle and stop thinking and let things happen. On rare occasions, this would create something successful. On most occasions, it would be nonsense. The art equivalent of speaking in tongues.-

For an artist, drawing/painting is how that person communicates best. A sketchbook is not just a place of practice, but a place where the artist can communicate and reason with him or herself on an idea.


-As you may recognize, this is the original sketch for the Herbert the Swamp Monster piece I posted about a few months ago. Compare the 2 and see what I thought was important in the composition vs. what I thought was changeable.-


-My kitten sleeps lazily on the couch directly in front of me. Thank god I had a sketchbook in hand.-

I could go on trying to explain to you how exciting it is to dig through one's past and see what treasures lie in the dark dusty corners of your sketchbooks. Instead, I'm going to post some of the treasures I dug up.


-A cartoon design of a character I had been working on for a long time.-


-Another example of that same character.-


-I don't remember exactly what I was thinking in any of this, but I know what I was trying to communicate.


-This is a thumbnail doodle for composition of a kid flying a kite. There was a while where I was on a children's book illustration kick. I don't remember the story I had come up with but I do remember this kite.



-For quite some time, monsters were a prevalent theme in my sketchbooks.-








-I'm a big fan of black and red ink evidently.-


-Yet another children's book concept sketch. This story I do remember.-


-This was an old art school assignment. We had to do a self portrait with an animal. I choose the monarch because they are graceful. How 'bout the fact that I looked like Jesus Christ with long hair? What was I thinking???-




-I still think that if I refined this piece and vectorized it, it would make a bad-ass t-shirt.-





So these have been the little un-finished visual mind-farts I've had over the years and can't bring myself to destroy. I always found it hard to keep a steady diary. Perhaps it's because an artist draws/paints, they don't write.

Well, till next time...