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Reading Notes: Draw Stronger by Kriota Willberg

Recently, I complained that all the pencil sharpening put me in a position to buy an electric pencil sharpener. Despite the fact that I am enjoying my new toy, this situation brought me back to a book I love and gift and recommend often:

Draw Stronger: Self-Care For Cartoonists and Other Visual Artists

by Kriota Willberg

Firstly, this book contains actionable things that help me keep my hands working. Stretches, strengthening exercises, and a list of things to check in my work environment/habits.

Secondly, this is a book that is drawn from the first page to the last, and I appreciate it as an illustrator, and as a reader and connoisseur of large projects!

Thirdly, while writing about all this I went down the rabbit hole and learned about graphic medicine, comics in palliative care, embroidery, and history of sutures and ligatures, and... well, it was a rabbit hole!

Reading Notes: A Graphic Novel Adaptation I Loved!

Three things will help you with the background on how I chose this book:

1. I read many books simultaneously, and one of the categories of books that emerged relatively recently is graphic novels. I do not have a comics-reading background to lean on, so this is a new way of reading that I am embracing as a part of my kaleidoscope of consuming stories.

2. When I encounter a new topic that I would like to familiarize myself with or when I am having a hard time reading a book (or finishing it), one of the strategies that I've found helpful is to look for a kids' version on the same topic.

3. The "Hidden Life of Trees" by Peter Wohlleben is a very interestingly titled book that came highly recommended, and I really wanted to love it. I checked out of the library several times, but somehow never finished. So when I saw a graphic adaptation by Fred Bernard, I had to check it out, and now I am happy to report - it is a glorious graphic novel!

Benjamin Flao is a comic artist with a fabulous line of a dip pen in a flexible ink who did all the illustrations. There is a lot of light in this book! It is filled with trees and plants and all sorts of creatures. I especially enjoyed pages where the artist used a scale distortion! (see below how our main hero is crawling inside the tree to explain the parts of the bark?) I used to own a book on human anatomy where the main character was traveling through the body - I cannot find the name of the book, but it was a real thrill to follow through the adventures. Our protagonist has a companion with a great grin and a happy tail. There are four seasons, which are illustrated with such care! And through all the ups and downs of this story, I felt very much invested. This kind of feeling is something I treasure.

And it was obvious that the artist loves to draw. I am sure that by the end of drawing 235 pages on the same subject - and in a multi-panel comics structure to boot, anyone would be really happy to do a different project. Yet the line is alive and playful. It reminded me of a "Carnet de Voyage" graphic novel by cartoonist Craig Thompson in the way he enjoys building compositions of amazing humans, architecture, and animals intertwined on a page made with the Pentel pocket brush (my love for this tool is abound). I love "Carnet de Voyage" more than "Blankets" - possibly because the subject is much closer to me, and possibly because it feels like it was drawn in a much freer way - the way "Hidden Life of Trees" is drawn in.

Reading Notes: New Collection of Sketchbooks!

Just in case, if you did not know this about me, I am a huge fan of sketchbooks :) I enjoy flipping through sketchbooks of other people when I have a chance (Sketcherfest was a great example of where one might do this for a whole day!). And I always look for books that are essentially collections of other people's sketchbooks. Be that one artist or many under one cover - they are always a waterfall of inspiration and motivation. I have quite a few in my own library - it all started with Julia Rothman's "Drawn In" and then my collection grew quite a bit.

So when I saw that two artists whose work I follow closely (Studio Takeuma and Tom Froese) were featured on the cover of this collection, I hunted it down through the library (hurray for libraries - the fact that you can get almost any book for free is one of the things I will never stop cheering for and be amazed at! Support your libraries - if you are in the USA, the American Library Association is a great source of information on how to support them - especially during uncertain times like right now, when book bans are on the rise and library funding is being cut.

So, the book is "Sketched Out: Artistic Sketchbooks and Journals Unveiled," and it is a collection of sketches from artists. There are some interview questions and short information too. I knew before (and admire) some of the artists in this book: Jenny Adam and Marina Grechanik. But many were new, and in these days when algorithms pollute your instagram, it became especially hard to track down new artists. I have a system to follow what people are doing (and avoid looking at the stream that is being pushed at me), but it works for people who are already in my cone of interest, and I was glad to add some names to my list.

Here are some photos from the book (click on the image to see it large).

Reading Notes: My Current Favorite Book on Gray

I continue my Ode to Gray by sharing a a fascinating book about the history of London, which I think is actually a book about grays!

It is called London: A History by a wonderful illustrator and ceramist, Laura Carlin. There were many fascinating facts in this book, but all I could think of while reading it was "another gray, and here is yet another". If you are interested in London, illustration, history, color in general, gray or grey in particular, texture, or tracing choices artists make through pieces of art - look up this book!

Another thought that was running through my mind while I looked at these drawings was how different is the gray of Hammershoi!

A new inspiring book in my library! (and my sketches are in it too)

Virginia Hein is an amazing sketcher with such a zest for trying new things! She is an expressive and comprehensive colorist, and mark maker, and her ability to sketch in a moving car makes me so jealous! Her work is always an inspiration and despite my dislike of heat, I think I will make it to the desert to sketch the places Virginia had shown me in her works.

In the middle of the pandemic, I got an email from her that there is a book in the making. It had two authors - and the second one is Gail Wong - whose detailed Seattle sketches I know well through the Urban Sketching community! And they wanted to use a couple of my sketches in this new book about... ABOUT NATURE! the subject dear to my heart pandemic or not :)

And this week I got to see the real book (The Urban Sketching Handbook Spotlight on Nature) and it is filled with wonderful ideas to try and so many great examples of different approaches to sketching nature! Many sketchers I knew and many were completely new to me - and it is such an honor to be in this extraordinary company!