The Sketchbook Project

I found this a while ago on arty site Abduzeedo and quickly signed up for it, not that I’ve done much drawing since my one year at art school years ago, and some more at Uni when I was studying Digital Film Making slightly less years ago.

The Sketchbook Project is, “like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks.”

Thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the world.

After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view.

Anyone – from anywhere in the world – can be a part of the project.

It’s a cool idea. They send you a sketchbook, you choose a theme, you fill it up and send it back. Then it goes on a tour, gets into the collection at the Brooklyn Art Library and can be uploaded to their digital library.

Check out all the details at their site and go nuts with inspired, and inspiring, scribblings.

August 23, 2011
Categories: Art . Tags: . Author: Kris Bather . Comments: Leave a comment

DC Art, Awards and Logos

Time flies. DC’s relaunch of its entire superhero line is now only days away, with the new Geoff Johns and Jim Lee Justice League #1 coming at us on August 31. Then September sees the remaining 51 #1 issues arrive. If you’re on Twitter, or even if you’re not, you may’ve seen some sneak peeks at some of DC’s new titles, and here’s what ‘s been released thus far, including pages from Nightwing, Teen Titans, Hawk and Dove, Animal Man and a few others.

An article at Hero Complex says the orders for Justice League #1 have reached 200, 000, making it the year’s most ordered single issue. Six other DC #1s have topped 100, 000. That’s good news, but of course it doesn’t really mean anything just yet. The important numbers will be what sales the second, and third, and so on, issues get.

“The walk-in, casual fans have gotten away from us,” DiDio observed. “We are down to just the die-hard buyers.”

Comic-book stores have become increasingly barren, with sales dropping consistently over the last three years and down an additional 7% so far in 2011.

Theories abound as to why. Some blame convoluted story lines, while others point to cynical publicity stunts like killing key characters only to bring them back a few months later. But the main culprit more likely lies beyond the page: Today’s youth is far more interested in spending its leisure hours in the digital worlds of YouTube, Xbox and Twitter.

The generational shift is not lost on DiDio and his associates at DC. For the first time, the comic-book company will now make each of its issues available on digital devices such as iPads the same day it arrives in stores — a jarring departure for many retailers that only have to look at the fate of record stores to see the dangers that digital downloads present to brick-and-mortar merchants.

The Harvey Award winners were announced at Baltimore Comic-Con. Blacksad, Scott Pilgrim, Daytripper, Darwyn Cooke. There’s some worthy victories. Get the full list here.

Finally, who doesn’t like a good logo? Check out all of DC’s new 52 logos here.

August 23, 2011
Categories: Comic Art, New To Comics?, News . Tags: . Author: Kris Bather . Comments: Leave a comment