Sketchbook Project 2018-2019: “Imaginary Cartography: grids + quadrants”

I’ve finally completed the Sketchbook Project I posted about earlier!

Where my previous sketchbook focused on the breadth of my markmaking, this one was a deep dive into a particular way of building upon maplike drawings to make larger artworks. I’ve taken a couple stop-motion videos that illustrate the process.

I structured the sketchbook by exploring different aspects of this grid technique one by one. The first couple spreads of the sketchbook were the most free-for-all, incorporating various types of markmaking and a looser style; I then drew on elements from those for the subsequent approaches, which involved moving the grid squares, transferring images onto the squares and pre-pasting grids.

In order to explain all this, I took advantage of our axidraw pen plotter and had a robot draw out the rules for each drawing. Hopefully that will help viewers of the sketchbook know what they are looking at!

The sketchbook will be part of the Sketchbook Project Vol. 14 tour for 2019, which looks like it will be hitting Boston and Providence after Brooklyn!

Check out a few more spreads from the sketchbook below. The sketchbook will be digitized at some point in the future; stay tuned for that announcement!