I’ve posted before about Ellsworth Kelly’s Sketchbooks: see A Wonderfully Messy Sketchbook. I had to return to the topic after seeing a wonderful reel of sketchbook images on the Instagram page of EK100.org, which is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ellsworth Kelly’s birth. A couple of screen grabs below: Apparently he kept lots of sketchbooks, … Continue reading Ellsworth Kelly Sketchbooks
The MoMA website has an interesting feature on Rashid Johnson’s sketchbook practice. In a conversation with Samantha Friedman, the organizer of MoMA’s exhibition “Degree Zero: Drawing at Midcentury,” Johson talks about how he uses sketchbooks, some of the motifs in his drawings, and how the pandemic inspired him to think back to how he’d used … Continue reading Rashid Johnson’s Sketchbook
Roy Lichtenstein is best known for his Pop Art comic book style works, so I was quite surprised to come across this page from one of his sketchbooks, which is now in the collection of the Whitney Museum. Not comic-y at all, these seem to be studies of perhaps architectural moldings and patterns. I was … Continue reading Roy Lichtenstein’s Sketchbook
I bought this cute little notebook at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. There is no branding on it, so I’m just calling it a “rainbow edge notebook.” I liked the way the museum logo was quite subtle on the cover, and the slim size and eye-catching rainbow-colored page edges seemed quite unique. … Continue reading Review: Rainbow Edge Notebook
The notebook image below is from an interested blog post from the V&A Museum in London. It’s an example of a pattern book: “They are reference guides for production. Maybe they show things made by the company in the past, maybe images by competitors, maybe historic objects – all intended to aid in further design. … Continue reading A Pattern Book from the V&A Museum
I was so excited several months ago when I heard there would be a big exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum all about Jean-Michel Basquiat’s notebooks. I’d seen some of the images of the notebooks and pages and thought it sounded really cool, but then I read that the notebooks had been carefully disassembled so the … Continue reading Basquiat Notebooks
Here’s the stash of notebooks I brought back from my Amsterdam/Paris trip. First, two little notebooks from a local newsstand/bookstore near where I was staying. They had a nice selection of school supplies, and other notebook brands such as Moleskine, but these two were inexpensive and not like others I’d seen elsewhere. The blue one … Continue reading Notebooks from Paris and Amsterdam
Artist/illustrator Lisa Congdon has a new line of notebooks commissioned by MoMA, featuring her drawings of objects from their design collection: See more at New Notebooks for MoMA! – Today is going to be awesome..
A review of an interesting art exhibition, based on a collection of Moleskine notebooks: Don Maynard’s Take Note exhibit was a bit like climbing a mountain. Slow and tedious at first, but well worth the required time and effort. Housed in Modern Fuel’s State of Flux Gallery, the installation consists of 18 artists’ notebooks chained … Continue reading Moleskine Monday: Take Note Exhibit
I vacationed in Portugal last fall, and returned with a nice little pile of notebooks: The first ones I bought were this set of 4 stitched cahier-type notebooks. They were a bit expensive at 15 Euros, but I guess that was to be expected as they were bought at a very touristy location. Nice smooth … Continue reading Notebooks from Portugal