Evelyn Markasky: Sketch Books

Etsy Metal Blog Carnival

I love to sketch, I probably have 10-15 sketchbooks of every size.

For me it is a way of thinking out loud.

Sketch books have 3 directions for me to go in.

One is I like to draw and that becomes the experience in itself. It's also I way I can think. I will, lots of times, use stream of consciousness writing trying to figure out where I'm at with my work or in my life... I've always liked letters and the lettering, lots of the time, will be part of the page.

Another direction for me is that I sketch to get ideas to work in metal. That is the hardest for me because my brain has a hard time going from 2D to 3D. My 2D sketches usually don't look very good in 3D. Sketches help if I'm trying to figure out something technical. In metal, I work better if I can hold it in my hand and see what it can do. I'm not good at visualizing with my eyes. When I was a little girl, my mother used to make most of my clothes and we would go to the fabric store to look for patterns and fabric. I always had a hard time because I couldn't visualize how the pattern would look made out of a certain fabric until it was actually made. Fortunately, my mother could. I think I work more kinesthetically. I like to hold it in my hand and feel what needs to happen, to sense the balance in a piece.

The 3rd direction is when I've made something in metal and I want to remember how I do it, so I will sketch the piece in different stages of being made and write notes about the process.