Article7th October, 2005 / art
Digitising old sketchbooks
I’m scanning and uploading my sketchbooks. I’m always paranoid about losing everything in a fire, but it also feels liberating to share eight years of pre-blog private thoughts and ideas.
These sketchbooks have previously only been seen by a few close friends and I’d be interested to know what you all think of them. I’ve only scanned book 1, book 2, book 3, book 6, book 7, book 8, book 12 and book 13 so far as it’s a mammoth task, but I’m sharing right away.
Book 7 and book 8 might be of interest as they were created when I was based in London. The books are from the days when I lived in different places (London, the Peak District, Iceland, Wales etc) and amongst all the exploratory art stuff and rough sketches there are some real gems and very personal thoughts.
I’ll talk more about these books when I’ve scanned in the other ten, but I’m a bit too busy to do that right now, so it may be a while. In the meantime, have a browse.
Responses
# Crystal responded on 7th October 2005 with...
WOW! These are amazing. How come you had these gems locked up for so long? They’re kind of addictive, I kep flicking through the pages reading all the scribbled notes. Some of the pages look centuries old. Very “Wicked Worn”!
# Heiko responded on 7th October 2005 with...
Incredible stuff, compliment Simon!
# Mike Stenhouse responded on 7th October 2005 with...
Sweet Jesus! Now I see what you were on about at the BC show… It must have taken you bloody ages to get those scanned!
It’s facinating flicking through… They’re as much a visual diary as a set of sketch books.
# allgood2 responded on 8th October 2005 with...
What a great use of the gallery module in Expression Engine. I love it. They are rather addicting though, I’d assume just because they provide insight to your inner mind in a very different manner than an article does. Articles/web posts even when offhand, are far more formalized thought processes then sketches and random notes are. Very cool.
# If Else responded on 8th October 2005 with...
Wow, that’s an absolute treasure trove that you have there. Fantastic stuff!
# Si responded on 9th October 2005 with...
It’s amazing to see this kind of thing online, it makes me once again think about making my own sketchbook (I don’t know where I’ll get the time from at the moment!). Really interesting stuff - I need inspiring at the moment, thanks for sharing it all. It also makes me think that I need to travel/get out more! Si
# Bojan responded on 9th October 2005 with...
Great stuff! Inspirational.
# Simon Collison responded on 10th October 2005 with...
Thanks all.
Mike: Oh, I’d forgotten I’d told you about the books. Yeah, only a third of the way through scanning. Ugh, I just canny face doing any more just yet.
Allgood2: EE indeed. Just bloody perfect for something like this. I’m gonna convert the folio to gallery templates soon too - oh, and tidy the code up. It’s a bit dirty - but who cares right now?
Si: Do it, man. Do it. Then stick it online - I’d love to see…
# Tom responded on 10th October 2005 with...
Very interesting, I have a bunch of notebooks but yours look a lot sexier than mine. It will be interesting to take a peek thought them. Thanks for sharing.
# nirvana poster girl responded on 24th October 2005 with...
I’m in the middle of helping a friend create a portfolio book of sorts. I really like what you’ve done. It gives me some great ideas.
Cheers
# Emily responded on 26th October 2005 with...
I really loved seeing what you’re doing in your sketch book-I can’t imagine the work of scanning it all in! Thanks for the inspiration!