Artists' Sketchbooks: A Few Recommendations

from 

The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World.

Behan, Teju. (2012). Drawing from the City. Tara Books.

Campanario, Gabriel. (2012). The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books.

from 

An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers

Gregory, Danny. (2013). An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers. Cincinnati, OH: HOW Books.

Gregory, Danny. (2008). An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers. Cincinnati, OH: HOW Books.

Hearld, Mark and Simon Martin. (2013). Mark Hearld's Workbook. London: Merrell Publishers.

Heller,Steven and Lita Talarico. (2010). Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World's Great Graphic Designers.The Monacelli Press.

from David Hockney's A Yorkshire Sketchbook

Hockney, David. (2012). A Yorkshire Sketchbook. Royal Academy Publications.

Kalman, Maira.(2007). The Principles of Uncertainty. New York: Penguin Press.

from Angie Lewin: Plants and Places

Lewin, Angie. (2010). Angie Lewin: Plants and Places. London: Merrell Publishers.

Rothman, Julia. (2011). Drawn In: A Peek into the Inspiring Sketchbooks of 44 Fine Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, and Cartoonists. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books.

Rothman, Julia, Jenny Volvoski, Matt Lamothe and Dave Eggers (2010). The Exquisite Book:100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Sokol, Dawn DeVries. (2008). 1,000 Artist Journal Pages: Personal Pages and Inspirations. Beverly, MA: Quarry Books.

Making A Playground for Ideas: WonderBooks

In thinking about a Year of Wonder Project, making WonderBooks to record thoughts, ideas, possibilities are important.  Here are a few possibilities.

I. Making Your Own WonderBook





II. Gesso:  A Book: How to Make an Altered WonderBook




III. Collected Artifacts: Filling Your WonderBooks (Favorite Things)



IV. Embedding an Art Conversation into Your WonderBook

Conversing without speaking and using paint as the medium for exchange is the idea behind art conversations. My friend, Jane Gangi and her students at Mount St. Mary's College have been busy engaging children through art conversations.  Adding an art conversation to your WonderBook allows you to think beyond the spoken word.  Here are a few examples of children's art conversations.

Genesis of an Art Conversation (Reilly, 2009)

V. Your WonderBook

The first rule is there are no rules.  A WonderBook is a place to set down tentative ideas, explorations, disconnections.  It is very much a playground for ideas. I have never consistently kept a 'writer's notebook', but I have lots and lots of artist-books where I think and explore ideas and feelings. Some of these have been made with paper and others are digital.

This is a page from one of those books that later became a finished art piece, The Alphabet is No Language.

A page from my WonderBook