The Brief

For this task, you should discover and review as many illustrators or other practitioners who have created artist journals or used sketchbooks as a visual diary.

Identify your personal top ten choices and the criteria by which you are making this selection.

1.      Adebanji Alade

My first choice for my personal top ten artist journals is Adebanji Alade’s sketchbooks. He loves drawing faces and people and would go to Borough Market and sketch people in the moment. Once the person moves, he will stop and draw a new sketch in a different pose. This will result in a series of sketches that almost bring the person alive by observing the person’s movement pattern.

Adebanji Alade says sketching is the foundation of any art. The more you sketch, the better. His journals are observational studies and quick, highly skilled sketches.

He loves drawing cows, portraits, figures, and people. Alade is also a painter who uses his sketchbooks as a foundation for his wider body of work.

2.      Bryce Wymer

Bryce Wymer’s sketchbooks are more interpretive than Adebanji Alade’s. He simplifies his observations to shapes and 3D drawings. The visual quality of his sketchbooks is resolved and could qualify as finished artwork.

In his sketchbooks, he explores shapes, people, plants, and the use of line and solid shapes. 

His work captures my attention and makes me want to look further and try to make sense of what I see. The content of his pages is simplified yet rich in detail.

3.      Lizzy Stewart

Lizzy Stewart’s travel journals are rich with visual information that reflects the mood and feel of each narrative she sketches. She uses her sketchbooks as a visual diary and records her day in pictures and some text. She uses text to add to her storytelling, to be more specific about certain details, and to take notes.

Her sketchbook drawings are resolved and look similar to her completed work. She sells her sketchbook journals on Gumtree.

4.      Marina Grechanik

Marina Grechanik has an extensive sketchbook collection of various mediums and applications. She also creates many travel diaries that capture the look and feel of her location. Her rich use of colour, expressive lines, and high-contrast drawings are fascinating discoveries, and I could sit for hours and page through her sketchbook work. 

There is a definite connection between her sketchbook work and her finished professional work.  In her sketchbook, she also uses limited text to convey important information such as her location and activities.

5.      Oliver Jeffers

I am very fond of Oliver Jeffers’s work, especially his use of colour and his ability to simplify an illustration to communicate a clear message.  His sketchbooks are aesthetically pleasing to look at and he can combine elements to create something completely new and exciting.

6.      Roozeboos – Anne Roos Kleiss

Anne Roos Kleiss draws inspiration from everyday life and looks at the world with childlike curiosity.  Her work is playful, filled with colour, and tells stories through the smallest details. Her finished work looks similar to her sketchbook work, and it’s clear that her sketchbooks play a large part in generating her final work.

7.      Joohee Yoon

Joohee Yoon has a distinct style in her sketchbook work.  Her finished professional work is colourful and energetic, and she often uses exaggeration when illustrating her characters.  She regularly contributes to publications such as the New York Times, Le Monde, and the Washington Post. It is interesting to see how she uses patterns in both her final- and sketchbook work.

8.      Isabelle Arsenault

I am mentioning Isabelle Arsenault in my top ten visual diaries because I have great admiration for her work. 

Isabelle’s distinctive illustration style looks fragile and ethereal, but the grey and black tones prevent it from becoming too sweet and precious.  Her (Isabelle’s) marks are confident yet experimental. (Uppercase Publishing, 2012)

“I see my sketchbook as a place where I can experiment, try different ideas or visual approaches.  It’s a place where I draw for my own pleasure.”  ~ Isabelle Arsenault

9.      Rachel Gannon

Rachel Gannon is another artist whose work I really enjoy.  It is interesting to see her sketchbooks and how she uses textures.  Her finished editorial work still retains the texture she used in her sketchbooks.

10.     Lauren Simkin Berke

Illustrator and painter Lauren Simkin Berke is based in Brooklyn, New York. 

“I draw every day from a different vintage snapshot, purchased from one of several flea markets or shops.  The drawings are small, voyeuristic and a bit obsessive.  I do them when I have my coffee in the morning.  I use the line work of these drawings for my personal projects (paintings, etchings etc.) and for my illustration work” ~ Lauren Simkin Berke. (Brereton, 2009)

Discovering and reviewing the sketchbooks of so many illustrators has given me an insight into how creative people think.  Although I am not seeing the entire collection of these artists’ sketchbooks, but just a part of it, it still gives me an idea of how these illustrators work.

The visual quality of these journals is less important; they are more about passing thoughts of what the artist experienced at the time. Ideas are affirmed, reaffirmed, or discarded. For others, sketchbooks are simply a place to play.

Works Cited

Uppercase Publishing. (2012, August 9). Sketchbook Isabelle Arsenault. Retrieved from Uppercase Publishing: https://uppercasepublishing.squarespace.com/blog/2012/8/6/sketchbook-isabelle-arsenault

Brereton, R. (2009). Sketchbooks. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.