Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Picture Book

I have tons and tons of sketchbooks, blank books and scrapbooks around the house and, believe it or not, a lot of them are in use. Some you see come by here often (like the Fodder Book or the Pattern Book) and others not so much (like the sketchbook I use to practice portraits or the one for beautiful ladies in beautiful dresses). I am scattered over lots and lots of books and I actually like that, because it feels like no matter what I want to do I always have a place to go. There's just some places I visit more often than others, haha.


One of the books I've started to use recently is a very simple scrapbook. I have taken up collecting images that speak to me or that I may want to use as inspiration for art or drawing and I thought it would be nice to put them together in a no nonsense type of book. No embellishments, no artsy stuff, just stuff I like. For all intents and purposes it's just a picture book. That's what I call it too, The Picture Book.


I don't know if you can tell, but it's a mix of images I find in magazines, on the internet and my own photographs. I try to source everything by putting the name of the artist next to the pictures, but this is not always possible and I'm not too bothered by it, since this is just for personal use. In a way this whole thing reminds me of a sort of pinterest on paper. Printerest!


There's no rhyme or reason to how the images are organized, it has more to do with size than anything else. If an image fits in the remaining space it will get stuck down and if it doesn't it will move on to the next page.  I like the complete mismatch of things. It leaves my eye to just wander around the imagery and helps my mind to dream a little. 


I think just in these few images you can tell my love for patterns, girl's portraits, and flowers and such. I like that. I also like to see my own images mingled with those of other people. In short I find this whole thing inspiring.

For someone who tossed away her pinterest account this is the perfect solution and it feels much more tangible this way too. I used to pin a lot, but never really looked at them again, but with this I can just leaf through things directly.

Just thought I might share this in case it might give one of you an idea to try this as well. It's simple and it's cheap and it's quite relaxing to do as well.

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day!