Friday Finds
For many of us, the past few months have hardly felt like summer and, soon, we will slowly sink into the early chills of autumn. If you’re looking for that feeling of sunny warmth, of adventure, of the comfort of greenery, Sara Boccaccini Meadows’s Volume 14 sketchbook, “A Lovely Wander NYC,” will certainly satisfy your craving. Each of Meadows’s lush, intricate painterly spreads is a vignette of New York City summer life, from the beaches of the Rockaways to the florals and foliage that decorate sidewalks and parks. Meadows has lent her trademark style to a feast of projects ranging from clothing designs and wallpaper to branding and book covers. You can see more of Meadows’s lovely work on her website and check out prints in her online shop. If you’re looking for more creative inspiration, you can check out her book, Botanical Paintings, and her series of coloring pages if you’re looking for a way to challenge your artistic impulses.
For her 2012 sketchbook, “Treehouse,” Jane Carlisle expanded on her previous work in silk printing and botanical designs, creating a series of collages based on roles of trees as passageways, sources of shelter, and guides into other worlds. Each spread of her branch motifs is a different act of alchemy through material and color. Carlisle continues to incorporate silk into her creative process. Her projects have included ‘art trails’ of patterned silk markers installed within forests, recordings of her walks through nature, and mixed media still lifes and landscapes. She also leads workshops, including a Saturday Art Club at a local gallery for young artists. Carlisle’s work has been exhibited throughout the United Kingdom and you can see her complete body of work on her website, as well as check out her Instagram for a behind-the-scenes look at her art-making.
Dutch artist COWBOYJO created playful collages for their 2013 sketchbook, “Participating Pieces.” Using clippings from magazines and publications such as newspapers and artbooks, each spread tells a unique story of whimsy and creativity by using the materials one encounters in their daily life. Artist Joke ter Harmsel continues to work under this pseudonym. She has taken on visual projects of all kinds, including web design, branding, and publication design among many. An early participant in the Sketchbook Project, you can also checkout COWBOYJO’s 2011 and 2012 sketchbooks. You can see more of COWBOYJO on Instagram and on her website.
Wendy MacDonald chose to showcase the urban beauty of Saskatchewan in her 2016 sketchbook, “Right Here Right Now: Reflection on Back Alleys.” The Canadian artist writes, “Alleys are full of garbage, graffiti, cardboard and signs. They have puddles settled into patchy pavement, potholes, and wild grasses gathered in cracks. Alleys are heavily used yet forgotten offbeat pathways between city streets.” Her delicate pen illustrations capture the intricate geometries and patterns of cityscapes, from thin webs of wiring connecting buildings to the patterns of light and shadows that adorn seemingly empty building facades, with little captions to document where she was inspired. It’s a sketchbook made for urban explorers.
Irish artist Leah Beggs’s 2018 sketchbook, “UNDERWATER,” is a wonderful experiment in the colors and rhythms of oceanic life. A painter by trade, Beggs took an unconventional approach to filling her sketchbook. She re-bound her book with handmade paper from Khadi Paper and let each page bloom with splashes of blues, pinks, and violets. Flipping through each page is a soothing experience, and sure to inspire a sense of dreamy calm. Beggs continues to work as an artist, producing ephemeral abstract paintings. Her work has been exhibited at Solomon Fine Art and you can virtually view her most recent exhibition of paintings, titled Cuimhi. Beggs’s paintings have also been featured in publications such as The Irish Times and Raidió Teilifís Éireann, among others. You can see her portofolio on her website and keep up with her newest projects on Instagram.