Why Do Artists Keep Sketchbooks Art Talk Ch 1
Thinking on the Pages of Sketchbooks
Elisa Alaluusua originates from Finnish Lapland and has been exhibiting internationally since the start of 1990s. Her first caste was in drawing (1991), since so she has completed 2 MAs, one in Britain (Ecology Fine art, 1995) and i in Finland (Fine art Education, 1999), and practise-based PhD at the University of the Arts London (2016) on the topic of Sketchbooks. In 2015 she won the second prize in the prestigious Jerwood Drawing Prize with her video/cartoon 'Unconditional Line'.
This article is based on her PhD research 'Sketchbooks – A Comparative Assay of the Employ of Sketchbooks by Contemporary Artists' and makes an attempt to get a ameliorate understanding of how thinking happens on sketchbook pages and what visual form information technology might take.
The human relationship between drawing and thinking is well established and has been eloquently examined by many. This article and its visualizations explore sketchbooks confronting a premise where cartoon is indeed understood to exist closely linked to thinking equally its manifestation too as an activity through which thinking happens. A gestural act embodies an act of thought in drawing (Newman 2003: 72) while our bodies produce and shop cognition (Pallasmaa 2009: 13). I understand drawing in its broadest sense equally described past Anita Taylor (2010: CD2/02) existence something between the 2 words at the root of 'cartoon': the old English discussion 'dragan' – which is nearly dragging something beyond the surface – and [the Italian] 'disegno'; with its more complex meaning including the relationship to the internal or conceptual aspects of a work of design (Petherbridge 2010: 18).
This article is based on my PhD research Sketchbooks – A Comparative Assay of the Apply of Sketchbooks by Gimmicky Artists and makes an attempt to get a better understanding of how thinking happens on sketchbook pages and what visual class it might take. As function of the practice-based PhD research a body of works was created and exhibited as a video installation. The installation consists of videos, or video drawings as I prefer to telephone call them, where gimmicky artists' sketchbook pages are seen on screens and every bit projections while their words are heard describing their sketchbook exercise. Sketchbook narratives are hence presented equally a mixture of visual material – videos of drawings and writing and collected material on sketchbook pages – and verbal voice communication (and subtitles) where similarities and differences are hopefully highlighted between the practices of these sketchbook keepers. The results of the PhD research are now presented in a touring exhibition most recently seen at Drawing Projects Uk, a space defended to drawing and contemporary art run by Anita Taylor and Gary Sangster, in Trowbridge in Feb 2017. The installation challenges the unmarried-aqueduct dominance as multiple voices and multiple narratives are heard. The exhibition is a perceptual field and offers a phenomenological experience where the company has to engage with the work and negotiate around the infinite in social club to start making sense of the material. We tin can find testify of sketchbooks every bit a space for thinking in this exhibition where we tin can consider sketchbooks as objects, seen on screes, together with the spoken communication we hear every bit the artists describe their arroyo. The relationship between thinking and speech is understood to be close yet dynamic and constantly irresolute where understanding somebody'due south words and thoughts is simply possible through understanding their motives (Vygotsky 1934/1987: 101, 283).
Sketchbooks are often described to reveal the artist'southward inner vision (Marks 1972:2) or offer an insight into their mind (Kemp 2008: v). If sketchbooks are revealing (Kirwin 1987, Wilkinson 1972, d'Harnoncourt 1989), and so perhaps they offer a particularly good entry point to understanding artists and their practice. When cartoon is understood every bit a way of thinking sketchbooks tin exist understood equally spaces for thinking or even as thinking tools. Through referencing practical examples, I will now present some of that thinking fabricated visible on sketchbook pages. I have chosen to focus on one of the thirteen artists interviewed and included in the original installation.
Naomi Shaw is an architect and able to talk well-nigh her sketchbook exercise in very analytical terms. This may be because she not only practices architecture but besides teaches it and encourages her students to keep sketchbooks. Shaw started her sketchbook exercise as a educatee and has kept her sketchbook collection. She explains that it has taken a long fourth dimension to first using sketchbooks "that are really useful" for her in the work she is doing.
Naomi Shaw skecthbook
It is obvious that these sketchbooks are by an builder every bit there are many plans, sections and elevations, as well as places either recorded from observation or sketched out equally ideas. Many of Shaw's sketchbooks are to exercise with travelling. She has recorded places she has visited and those visual notes are an data resources as well as a memory help. She also plans trips in her sketchbooks, using drawings and notation so that she can prioritise site visits for example. Shaw talks near i of her travel sketchbooks and explains how the visual note helps her to retrieve things. For her sketchbooks are nigh bringing together a lot of different data in 1 place and having that trigger the memory. Shaw explains that this is important because it is "a fashion of thinking or keeping a resource; sort of retaining information. So it'south partly a retentivity aid and partly it's making notes. Sometimes it stimulates some other sketch elsewhere or a contribution to a piece of piece of work elsewhere. Sometimes information technology only sits at that place latent for use at another time."
Shaw draws "footling snapshots" that are like "thumbnail sketches" equally she goes around with her sketchbook. The spaces Shaw is interested in recording have certain qualities that she wants to capture – later on those sketches can trigger things in her heed that are "entirely personal". Shaw acknowledges these drawings that record what she did in the twenty-four hour period every bit "a map of memories". Her drawings tin be from direct observation, simply not necessarily, equally Shaw also draws them based on her experiences or indeed using architectural drawings, such as plans, to guide her note making. Sketchbooks are an important mode of communication between Shaw and her business organisation partner when they work towards a competition submission, for example.
Shaw acknowledges that not everything in her sketchbooks is work related. She as well records things such equally holidays or dreams in them. Information technology is intentional that Shaw does not keep separate sketchbooks for separate tasks. She thinks it is important to come across things together and non to dissever her travel drawings from her instruction or design jobs. This style unlike ways of recording come together allowing one not but to stand for, but as well to create.
Shaw thinks that information technology is more than helpful to have sketchbooks documenting life in chronological guild than to split up diverse aspects of her practice into different books. She explains that she has to forcefulness herself to exercise that, as otherwise she would take "six different sketchbooks on the get at any 1 time" and she would have "half empty sketchbooks all over the place". Shaw points out how unlike types of drawing and recording are combined in her sketchbooks. When she is asked virtually these different types of potential sketchbooks Shaw is able to identify a number of means of working in the sketchbooks and reasons backside particular types of annotation. According to Shaw, in her sketchbooks there are things to do with her teaching – this includes lesson planning besides as tutorial notes – and also research notes either for students or projects she is working with. There are schemes where she works out [ideas] quite freely, equally well as memories and dreams recorded in a free mode. She too records spaces she visits, including details and plans for example. Despite the fact that different things mix upwards in Shaw's sketchbooks – there are architectural jobs, site surveys, ideas, competitions, dreams, chat notes, places visited, plans, sections and elevations – in that location is withal overall consistency. During the interview Shaw says that she had not realized before how particular themes come again and again in each sketchbook. "That", she says, "is quite fun to run across".
Naomi Shaw sketchbook
When Shaw is asked almost the importance of drawings being in a volume, she carefully considers the possibility of them being merely a pile of papers in a corner of a room. Shaw is quick to bespeak out that it would be easy for the drawings to get lost but that is not the only reason for her to come to the decision that a pile of drawings could not replace sketchbooks. Shaw explains that she knows where the information is in her books. This is sometimes due to what they are adjacent to, but this is non always the case. On the other hand, every bit she is going through her books during the interview Shaw finds herself occasionally surprised, thinking "Actually, that follows that?!"
Naomi Shaw pupil sketchbook
Already during her Foundation art studies Shaw was fatigued to architectural drawing without herself quite knowing what she was interested in. Her early on student sketchbooks accept more than collaging and photography than the later books, where she has institute a way of working that is the most useful for her in the work she does. She says that she often works from both ends of a sketchbook. She starts a new book by and large with a new projection or mayhap with a piece of research in preparation for a trip. It is not unusual for her to return to her old sketchbooks. During the interview she comes across a sketchbook with a sequence of bare pages left in it with a view of returning to them, and she points out that she does not do that anymore because it is "pointless as you never come up back to it". When looking through her early on student sketchbooks and the more recent ones Shaw is able to identify differences in style; the latest sketchbooks have more writing and cartoon and don't seem to have any collaging or photography in them. She is critical almost things in her educatee sketchbooks, finding some "dreadful things" in them merely she also points out that they illustrate the difference betwixt recording and representation in fine art training and practicing as an architect.
Equally Shaw picks upwardly an A5 Moleskine sketchbook she says that she "sort of alive[s] out of these ones". She states that she loves Moleskine because it fits well in her pocketbook, it is waterproof and of proficient quality newspaper. She carries her sketchbook with her the whole time and that is why there could be a shopping list amongst dreams, memories, contest time-tables and work related recordings. Shaw acknowledges that for her, sketchbooks are a "chronological thing" and that she now enjoys more always just filling her sketchbook with "whatever is happening side by side… whether it's a visit, a piece of work or an observation or a piece of research".
Naomi Shaw sketchbook
It could be summed upwardly that Shaw uses her sketchbooks as a tool for representation, cosmos and communication. As part of the sketchbook research a number of unlike sketchbook uses were identified; it was outlined that sketchbooks tin be understood every bit multipurpose tools and spaces for recording. They can exist seen as books almost life; they often are a constant companion and a treasured travelling companion. They reveal thinking on pages; they act as a repository of feelings; they can cover an obsession, be an aid to memory, a storage space, and a communication tool. It was best-selling that in sketchbooks personal approaches and possibilities are found and besides 'not knowing' or a 'demand' can be fostered (Alaluusua 2016: 189).
Hearing Shaw describe the usage of her sketchbooks and seeing the pages turned is not just intriguing but too informative. Shaw is able to draw, on paper and in words, a lively picture of her arroyo with sketchbooks. At that place is evidence of how the thinking happens on her sketchbook pages as she has drawn a sequence of slightly contradistinct designs or juxtaposed recordings of unlike sites visited, for example. While reviewing her old sketchbooks she reconnects with memories, old ideas and places recorded. When Shaw speaks virtually her sketchbook practice she describes particular pages and their content only likewise explains things that are non obvious when looking at the books. For case, the decision not to keep separate sketchbooks for work related tasks and holidays is a carefully considered choice for her. I believe that it is the sequential nature of sketchbooks that makes them spaces where thinking can be revealed in. It is possible to see how ideas and observations follow ane another. Despite the fact that information technology is non always obvious whether pages were done in the same session or even chronologically, information technology is possible to get a sense of the motives behind and the methods used by the artist. Listening to the creative person speak about their books offers some other level of information beyond the marks seen on the pages. The drawings, writing and whatsoever else is constitute on the sketchbook pages are visual recordings of thinking demonstrating new connections fabricated and meanings discovered. In their sequential nature, sketchbooks tin can trace the active processes of the listen that sometimes are very conscious – when trying to solve a problem for example – and at other times are subconscious and recorded in what might look like scribbling or random drawings on the pages.
The close human relationship betwixt thinking and language is demonstrated in sketchbooks. On the sketchbook pages themselves visual language appears and finds its personalised grade typical for the sketchbook keeper. In that linguistic communication – images, notes written and material nerveless – is embedded a whole world of thoughts. The creative person might be able to articulate them but the thoughts might likewise be across verbalised language. When the artists were interviewed for the research project a number of them pointed out, there and and so, that they had but realised something new about their own sketchbooks. Through verbalising their sketchbook practice the artists discovered some aspects of their ain sketchbook usage they had non been aware of before, for case a reoccurring theme.
For the artist William Kentridge drawing is a medium one can call up in. It is a not-verbal thinking process. He explains that you lot can change charcoal drawing equally quickly as you can think. With i wipe of a cloth the image disappears or is smudged and can exist rethought. For Kentridge the flexibility of drawing is important. He says that "there is an immediacy of drawing, of thinking in drawing, which is vital for me". (Maslen & Southern 2011: 200.) Perhaps information technology is accurate to describe the marks on sketchbook pages equally visualisation of thinking revealed in their sequence. The quick access and easy usage of sketchbooks undoubtedly make them spaces where thoughts can find a visual shape equally illustrated in Naomi Shaw's sketchbooks. It is easier to sympathise those thoughts when nosotros know nigh the artist's motives and those tin can be revealed through looking carefully at the pages and listening to the narrative of the artist when possible.
References
Alaluusua, Due east. 2016. Sketchbooks – A Comparative Analysis of the Utilize of Sketchbooks past Gimmicky Artists. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of the Arts London.
d'Harnoncourt, A. 1989. Foreword in Reff, T. & Shoemaker, I. H. Paul Cézanne – Two Sketchbooks past Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia Museum of Fine art. Pp. 6-7.
Kemp, M. 2008. Preface in Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks. Selected by Irma A. Richter; edited with an Introduction and Notes by Thereza Wells. 1st published 1952. 1st published in Oxford World's Classics 1980. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. five-eight.
Maslen, M. & Southern, J. 2011. Cartoon Projects: An Exploration of the Language of Cartoon. London: Black Dog Publishing Ltd.
Kirwin, L. 1987. Visual Thinking: Sketchbooks from the Archives of American Art. Archives of American Fine art Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1. Published by: The Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 21-29. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557653. As well published in Athenaeum of American Art Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1/4, 1990. A Retrospective Selection of Articles. Pp. 155-163.
Marks, C. 1972. From The Sketchbooks of the Bully Artists. New York: Thomas Y Crowell Company.
Newman, A. 2003. Conversation: Avis Newman/Catherine de Zegher in De Zegher, C. & Newman, A. The stage of drawing – gesture and deed. New York: The Drawing Centre & Tate Publishing. Pp. 67-82, 165-174, 231-237.
Pallasmaa, J. 2009. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Compages. Chichester: Wiley.
Petherbridge, D. 2010. The Primacy of Drawing. New Haven & London: Yale Academy Press.
Taylor, Anita. 2010. CD. Connecting Lines: Artists Talk About Drawing, Artists' Lives. 'Dragan' on CD2, rails 02. National Life Stories in partnership with the British Library.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1934); Rieber, R. W. & Carton, A. S. (eds.). 1987. The Nerveless Works of 50.S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Bug of Full general Psychology, Including Thinking and Speech. New York: Plenum Press.
Wilkinson, Grand. / Turner, J.Thousand.W. 1972. Turner's Early Sketchbooks: Drawings in England, Wales and Scotland from 1789-1802. London: Barrie & Jenkins.
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