I Don't Know Why I Draw or A Visual Data Repository

Watercolor sketch 5 X 6

It is something I've always done. Perhaps, it has something to do with, as Hercule Poirot would say, the little gray cells. But ever since I could hold a pencil in my chubby little hand I've drawn pictures. All children draw. I did but did not stop. Why?  Is it an unconscious desire to create or a method to record what I see around me?  I do know that through the years my brain has been stimulated more by pictures than words. A couple of cases in point.... I have great difficulty understanding mathematical relationships, but if they can be illustrated with graphs or vectors I seem to grasp the concepts quickly.  I never would have passed Labor Econ in college had the professor not presented the information graphically. 

Sketchs from the UK

One of my greatest joys of drawing over the years have been my sketchbooks, which I refer to as repositories of visual data.  While in the U. S. Navy I began keeping my drawings in a sketchbook and have continued some fifty-odd years.  In many cases they are autobiographical.  They easily document where I was when I made the sketch. It may be the sketch of a hippie chick lounging beneath the lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago or a camel in Tangier or a Manila hotel room. My sketchbooks include more than drawings.   You'll find ticket stubs, postage stamps, beer labels, and other objects.  Some times I'll do a rubbing.  I remember once in Wisconsin after I had completed a sketch of a Frank Lloyd Wright designed church I noticed the architect's signature in stone by the door. I made a rubbing of it using my wife's eyebrow pencil.

Long before Moleskin began putting envelopes inside the back of their blank books I was attaching them to the inside of my 5 X 8 spiral bound sketchbook and I stash  tidbits of printed matter there.  I have been fortunate not to have lost but one book in my travels. When we were in Ironbridge, England, and I left my book when we left there.  I bought another book  in Dublin and was fortunate to have my lost book returned via mail about a month after our return to the U.S.A. 

All my paintings start out as a sketch in  my book. The overall compositing is defined and a valued drawing created. Frequently I work out the color harmony as well.  Sometimes many thumbnails are done before finding exactly the right combination.  

There are other uses as well.  It is easier to understand some mechanical processes with a drawing. For example, for several years I have been attempting to render a drawing of a particular 18th century mill in McCormick County, SC.  I have visited the ruins and based on information gathered have drawn a floor plan.  There were four types of waterwheels used during this period and based on my information and drawings I can be reasonably certain what type  of wheel was used. Based on my research I am now very near the completion of this project. My sketchbook contains drawings as well as copies of researched mill data.

I usually provide a visual reference to the size of objects in my sketches. For example I may refer to an object being "4 pens" in length.  I normally use the same size ballpoint pen for all my drawings. Although not super accurate it does record a relative size.

I think the term repository of visual data is fairly descriptive, don't you?

Screen shot of family website with sound, video, and interactive games designed in sketchbook.