Jonathan Wilcox

Sketchbooks All Gone

Jon — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:21:51 +0000

This afternoon, I finally finished my years-long personal project of scanning all of the sketches I’ve ever made. Well, almost all of them. I’m sure a couple pages have been lost, thrown out, or given away over the years. But for the most part, I’ve captured everything. Loose copy paper drawings. Notebook margin doodles made during class. And, of course, actual sketchbook pages. All told, I have 7559 scans of drawings that were created at various points over the last fifteen or so years.

This image shows a stack of paper from my final run of scanning. I had to remove a lot of spiral binding wire and cut up some of those stupid big old hardcover sketchbooks you used to be able to buy at Borders. The paper in this photo is just a fraction of all of the stuff I went through. But after I’m done scanning and organizing everything, what do I do with it? I just throw it all in the recycling. I like the idea of all of this paper being turned back into fresh paper and being used for new drawings some day. That’s pretty romantic, I guess. But really I’m just happy to have these piles and piles of paper and books out of my house. I’ve been moving all of this stuff around with me for fifteen years now and adding more as I went. I’ve moved all of these doodles across the country twice. Not anymore!

Why am I doing this? Partly it’s because I’m pretty obsessive about digitization and organization (which I think I’ve touched on previously). I guess at some point in the future it will be an interesting experience to be able to go back and look at all of the things I’ve ever drawn. I don’t think it will really be a positive experience, although it will probably make me feel better about where I am presently. Because I’ll be honest, most of the drawings in these books and on these pages are not good. But a few of them aren’t bad, and some of the more recent sketchbooks have a lot of good ideas in them that I should probably follow up on for possible larger pieces. I guess that’s the point, right? A sketchbook shouldn’t be a precious object with beautiful, finished pieces on every page. It’s a place to get messy and work out some ideas and draw offensive things nobody else should ever see. But who knows, maybe somebody at the recycling facility is collecting this stuff.

Yeah right, it’s probably all going straight to the incinerator.

Roomie

Jon — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:27:06 +0000

From 2004 through 2007, I roomed with my best friend when we were going to school in Chicago. This comic will be published soon in the third issue of Columbia College’s comics anthology, Linework.

Los Angeles

Jon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:39:40 +0000

Thanks to all of my friends out in LA for a great trip.

Some Recent Work

Jon — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:15:17 +0000

A save the date card for my friends’ upcoming wedding.

An album cover illustration for one of my friend’s annual mixes.

Recent Reading

Jon — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:49:02 +0000

I’ve been trying to read more often in the evenings and veg out in front of the TV less often. Here are some things I’ve read and enjoyed over the last few months:

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J. D. Salinger
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
Habibi by Craig Thompson
Black Eye 1 edited by Ryan Standfest
100% by Paul Pope
Pulp Hope by Paul Pope
The World on Sunday by Nicholson Baker and Margaret Brentano

Yes, only a couple of those are BOOKS that are full of more text than images. But I’m trying. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention these awesome little comics/zines from Alex Schubert, The Blobby Boys and The Dudes.