This week I was traveling for meetings again. This isn't a big part of my job, but it is a part of it.The return trip was the challenge. Up at 4:30 a.m. to catch a plane from San Antonio to Denver, but not before landing in Dallas and then Amarillo. Denver weather held me up in Amarillo, which started my sketching time. I didn't have my sketch gear so I used my trusty ball point pen and a couple pieces of blank bond paper I happened to have. It did help pass the time, and was calming. 
I also brought along "An Illustrated Life" to read. I've been looking at the pictures for many months and finally started reading the text. I find it insightful to read what professional artists do for their illustrated journals, but I wish he would have talked to regular people who don't have the college art degree and don't have the art career. These are the regular folks that this whole every day matters movement was directed toward. Danny Gregory can go in any direction he pleases, and I do admire professional artists, but I want to see how regular people like me use illustrated journals in their day-to-day lives. I don't think I'll ever view a journal like a professional artist does, though I was pleased that I could relate to what several of the artists describe as reasons for journaling. Now that Danny has 'gone pro' in his work and Dan Price is publishing his Moonlight Chronicles only half the year and given up gainful employment for surfing, I feel us regular people are loosing our champions of the every-day illustrated journaling movement. For that I'm sad.
7 comments:
Hi John - I've read ILLUSTRATED LIFE at least 5 times, cover to cover, every word - even got out a magnifying glass to read some of the journaling. There are several journal collection books out now. I have them all but I-L is still my favorite.
It was fun and encouraging to hear of your latest sketching adventures truly "doing what you can, with what you have, where you are". Admirable! I've also got a copy of Illustrated Life that I've flipped through several times, but I would love to sit down and spend more time with it. I'm like you ... just an ordinary person without any professional art training.
Guess that makes two of us. I suspect there's a good percentage of EDM members that are like us. I wonder if anyone has ever gathered statistics?
I love The Illustrated Life, but I do believe you have a point. What a wonderful book it would make if it was full of people who do art (not just sketchbooks) for their own enjoyment. I am curious of people who do art as a practice instead of a career or a wannabe career
Hi John, I enjoyed reading your post but especially seeing your sketches of the airport. I've been there too, waiting and waiting in the Newark airport when that volcano kept erupting in Iceland and I wanted to get to England! I did some sketches and now remember it vividly.
I don't have Danny's book or any other on journaling but I do it all the time and teach classes sometimes. I would say I'm in the "artist" side of the fence but try to teach everyone how to draw!
Stop by and visit my blog sometime
(http://www.marymcandrew.com/blog)
Love your sketches and comments you journaled. The spork incident a few posts back was hilarious.
My criticism of I-L is that the print is so small, it's hard to read the words people wrote in their sketchbooks.
Cool sketches, John! (And don't forget Urban Sketchers Midwest!!)
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