Digital Sketchbook: July 2016

Greetings picture people! I started the year with a game plan that I deviated from almost immediately: To spend part of every work week creating drawings for myself. I was able to get a little rhythm going in January + February, but a couple of big projects in the Spring knocked me off my groove, and by the time May rolled around my resolution was a distant memory. I still think it's possible to balance client work & side projects, but I haven't quite figured it out yet. Finally, in June (six months later) I decided to give it another try. Here is the latest batch, made over the last month or two. Stick around till the end for a few sketchbook scans & a little more process rambling!

 

Since I've been starting from a little bit of a rut, I've been especially conscious of my process for these. Once I'm on a roll and have been posting new pictures regularly it seems to become a little easier, but for the first week or two of getting back in the saddle I really had to force myself. Every workday I've been starting with about an hour of free drawing time. For the first 20 minutes or so I've been just making lists. Writing down different topics that seem interesting (although at first I'm not feeling super interested in anything so they will be very general.) For example, a list might be: MONSTER TRUCK CULTURE, HIPPIES, VHS BOX ART. Then, when I have a couple of things that seem interesting enough to work off of, I'll start doing very crude stick figure sketches of different ideas. Starting with the most literal illustration of the list item, then iterating out different little riffs. After about an hour I'll be lucky if I have 1 idea that ends up seeming exciting enough to take into the rendering phase. 

 

 

Here are some of the very rough sketches that come out of that process and led to the illustrations above.

Alright! Back to the drawing board.

Thanks for reading!
 

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