Sketchbooks: diary, database or therapy?
Tomislav Tomic
“I started filling my sketchbooks whilst I was a student. One of my Professors at the Art Academy in Zagreb sort of forced us (students) to do that. I remember being lost at the beginning and not knowing what to put on all of the empty pages. I filled those first pages with sketches of all kinds of people and places that surrounded me, they were a kind of diary that I never wrote.
I pretty much use only ink drawings to fill my sketchbooks and I also use that technique in most of my final illustrations. That way I find the materials from my sketchbooks easier to use in some of my other work.
When I started to illustrate books, I used sketchbooks as a database for reference material. I was making all kinds of studies of plants, trees, animals and other stuff, all of which could help me with my illustrations.
Some years ago, a digital camera came into my life and made collecting the reference material much quicker and simpler. But after collecting hundreds of reference photos I understood that my new ‘digital sketchbook’ didn’t make me truly happy. It was very useful but I stopped sketching and felt kind of empty after a while. So I had to start collecting reference in the old way again.
I recently started sketching some bizarre creatures based on the animal world. I cannot say that these new drawings of animal-like-creatures will be very useful in my professional life, but I think of them as some kind of therapy. I often have a good laugh when some crazy character becomes part of the bizarre family in my sketchbook.
I just wish that I could have more time to make that funny family bigger.”
Tags: animals, creatures, drawing, pen & ink, sketchbook