The DART Summer Invitational, Pimp Your Sketchbook, continues with Raquel Aparicio, who lives and works in Valencia, Spain.

For me the sketchbooks are a zone of freedom where I can experiment with no restrictions. I always try to find new ideas, different textures. I remember drawing in my first sketchbook; it felt epic to me. I used to draw on loose paper sheets and I was almost scared of starting to draw in the sketchbook because there were so many blank pages, all carefully bound into a book. 

I always start my sketchbooks on a random page—never the first one, so I feel less risk of ruining it. 

Lately I have been sketching only in black and white, with pens and markers. When I travel I always take my sketchbook; I guess it’s a way to absorb how I am living, in a new place. I like to draw people but I don't do it so much because most of the time they notice and I don't want them to feel uncomfortable with that.

The first time I was came the US, as a student, I was really impressed by the beautiful sketchbooks of the other students, I don't really care about the final look of the drawings because I don't usually publish my doodles. But the sketchbook of my friend Scott Brundage was the best sketchbook I have ever seen.

Raquel Aparicio was born in Ávila, Spain in 1982. She has been working as an illustrator since 2006, and is very happy to be making a living out of drawing because is the thing she like to do the most. She had done illustrations for different clients around the world and she also works in the field of pattern design. Raquel loves fashion, music, reading and plants. You could say she is obsessed about flora and fauna, even uncuddly animals as spiders, bugs and other furless creatures. She lives with two cats.