(click on the image to see full size)
This summer I signed up for the 2012 Sketchbook Project. You receive a book, fill it, send it back, and it goes on national tour with thousands of other sketchbooks. People get to flip through your book and see your process or just enjoy the drawings. All the books eventually are sent to the Brooklyn Art Library where they are cataloged, and then put on the shelves. While I was in New York this October I actually made a visit to the Brooklyn Art Library to look through some of the thousands of book housed there. It was amazing. I was a kid in a candy store. I looked at quite a few books. I was at times comforted and intimidated as I thought about my own sketchbook collecting dust in my makeshift studio.
So, I’ve had my book since August, but when do I begin to actually draw in it? This week! The deadline is postmarked Jan 31, so I will probably finish on time. And I did notice as I glanced through some of the books at the library that not all of them were finished, so I know that filling all the pages isn’t really that important. But finishing the book is more of an agreement to myself.
The theme of my book is Heroes and Villains. I’m starting my book with people who can be considered both. The first two drawings in my book are of Nancy Pelosi and Michele Bachmann. I’m not a big fan of either of these woman, but I know that they are both considered admirable and villainous. It just depends on your views, values, and tastes I guess.
My sketches won’t be anything fancy, just picking up whatever is handy. the Bachmann drawing was drawn with Pitt pens and markers. The Pelosi drawing was just a quick sketch with a 4-color ballpoint pen. The finished book will be of my sketchbooks: loose, messy, and completely disjointed.
So that’s what’s in store for the next few weeks.
Mellanie Collins, Artist 
Great work Melanie! Good luck with your sketchbook and and let us know when it’s goes on tour. I hope it comes to Chicago!
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Thanks! The sketchbook tour does come to Chicago. They will be on display at the Hyde Park Art Center on May 3 – 5.
I hope you get to see the exhibit!
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That’s awesome! Hope you post most of the sketches you do in the sketchbook…would love to see them 🙂 Great start already!! 😉
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Thanks Esmeralda! I’ll most likely post a most of the sketches here. Have a great Christmas!
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Interesting how similar the two are in your depictions. We could chalk that up to the commonality of features (we all have the same essential set), or to the artist’s style (certainly a key aspect), but more than that, I think. See, I believe that we love and hate for the same reasons…a yin and yang effect, if you will. So if you see someone you really like, and then someone you really DON’T, it’s my belief those two people are two sides of the same coin. Just my two cents, you might say. 🙂
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Maybe it’s just the style? When I chose those to subjects I was thinking about the ways they were similar and trying to not think about the things I dislike about them. I think that resulted in the two looking softer than how I really see them in the media. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the holidays. I hope to get a chance to talk with you soon.
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Great sketches, and I think it’s interesting how a group of people can be so divided on views of people. And, if you think about it, we really don’t know these people all that well. The person that is projected into the public realm is so manipulated by public relations, that we’ll never really “know” them.
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