Register

Craig Frazier's Sketchbooks

By Peggy Roalf   Wednesday September 30, 2015

Now that Hurricane Season has officially moved into action, the DART Summer Invitational, Pimp Your Sketchbook, concludes with Craig Frazier.

Your first sketchbooks.

I started keeping a sketchbook several years into my design career—around 1990. It was the first time that I realized you could gather a complete idea in a thumbnail sketch. I designed a lot of posters and annual reports between two pages. Sketchbooks force me to work small which is perfect for designing trademarks. When I started illustrating in 1994, I continued to work at the same scale. I can generally figure out the idea for an illustration on one page of a sketchbook. 

 

 

 

If you ever lost a sketchbook, tell about this. 

No, but I imagine it’s something like losing your dog and leaving your sock drawer open for everyone to rifle through.

The best sketchbook you’ve seen by another artist

Almost every sketchbook I’ve seen is my favorite at the moment. To hold someone’s sketchbook is a treasured event. Many sketchbooks I’ve only seen online or in books which is a little different but good nonetheless. I can name a few that have left impressions: John Cuneo—one of the most hilarious and disturbing sketchbooks I’ve ever held. He draws the human anatomy like no one else. Joe Morse—His command of the figure, particularly the portrait combined with lettering is sublime. Best use of a Bic pen ever. John Hendrix—Brings church sketching to new heights, oh Lord. Bill Mayer—I’ve never seen a bad sketch from him ever. Actually, he might draw the human anatomy better than Cuneo. I’ll have whatever he’s drinking.

Your favorite travel sketchbook 

David Hockney’s sketchbook from Yorkshire, England.

If you have ‘single subject’ sketchbooks, please tell about this

I’ve done a few but they tend to violate the code of randomness that makes sketchbooks work so well. That said, theme sketchbooks provide a certain sense of containment can be quite a muse. I’m filling one right now using the gutter to connect very unlikely objects and creatures. It’ll be finished when I reach the back cover.

 

 

 

How sketching informs your work practice

Having used a sketchbook for most of my career, I’ve learned to appreciate—and count on the fact—that it can happen at any moment in a sketchbook. The routine of regularly making marks of any kind in your book can’t help but broaden your vocabulary. As a storytelling illustrator, I’m always trying to remember observations that may apply to an assignment down the road. Making sketches not only forces me to record those observations—but makes me summarize. I go between making a drawing and documenting an idea. They are entirely different processes. Sketching is the equivalent of ‘woodshedding’ for a jazz musician—it’s the hard work that you need to put in so you can improvise on a moment’s notice.

 

 

 

If you teach, do your urge your students to keep sketchbooks?

I don’t formally teach now but lecture on occasion. Honestly, I don’t see how any designer, illustrator, or writer can work without a sketchbook. It’s a repository for half-baked ideas and incomplete thougshts.

 

 

 

Craig Frazier is an illustrating designer who has enjoyed a distinguished career since 1978. In 1996, he scaled down his design practice to concentrate on illustration and very specific design projects. He lives and works in Mill Valley, California. He has a studio in Mill Valley and at The Sea Ranch.

He has a typical roster of editorial and corporate clients. Craig has created seven postage stamps including the 2006 Love stamp and the 2010/11 commemorative Scouting stamps.

Craig has published a 176-page monograph titled The Illustrated Voice, (Graphis Press, 2003.) He is also the author and illustrator of several children’s books. He has just recently published a book of his sketches, Sketchy, with Mohawk Papers and is available upon request from him.
Sketching video: http://www.craigfrazier.com/video/
summer_invitational


DART