Creative Bookazine Sketchbook Vol 3 Third Revised Edition Back Issue

The sketching stage is integral to any piece of art – it forms the foundations that everything else balances on. Sketches can often provide interesting insights into the processes and thinking behind the finished piece as well as showing off technique and skill. An artist’s sketchbook is sacred and personal – often thought of like a diary – filled with uncensored thoughts, emotions and unique flourishes that are special to them. The freewheeling excitement in sketches – where artists don’t hold back, don’t over-think, don’t censor – is hard to beat.

Wes Burt’s faces, for example, that can be seen in full on page 38 and as a background to this page, are an explosion of distinct features, expressions, angles and lines that all merge together to create a beautiful sort of chaos. There’d be no earthly reason to take such a familiar head sketch exercise to a finished stage; it remains a compelling piece of art in itself.

This book is about such captured moments bursting with creativity, straight from the minds of the finest illustrators around the world. Whether made by pencil or stylus, sketches may be loose and generous or precise and economic, but all reveal something about the pure fun of creation.