My Sketchbook has started its journey across the Atlantic to Brooklyn Art Library. I have called it Inside Out
“Using the covers of the sketchbook to hide behind, I have drawn a series of intensely personal self portraits. No bells and whistles, just me, a mirror and a 2B pencil. All the portraits were drawn within a 2 week period in March 2015. To me a sketchbook is a safe place where I can just be myself, and talk to myself through drawings and words. I never usually share them with anyone else. Looking back through old sketchbooks I love the freedom, originality and vitality of the drawings and strive to capture those qualities in my painting practice.”
The Sketchbook Project is a crowd-sourced library of over 30,000 sketchbooks submitted by people of all ages and backgrounds from more than 135 countries. Sketchbooks are archived in the permanent collection at Brooklyn Art Library with inclusion in the 2015 Exhibition Tour when sketchbooks are taken out on tour in a purpose built vehicle. My sketchbook is also going to be digitised so will be available to view 24/7 worldwide.
16 minutes, 34 seconds into the programme on Tuesday 31st of March it was good to finally see the film shot last August in St Davids, Pembrokeshire when eleven artists, ranging from professionals to students to amateurs spent a day drawing as many portraits as we could. This was in support of Grahame Hurd-Wood who is working on a project to paint every resident in the UK’s smallest city – the film featuring his project was shown on the previous day.
