Ektopia

Street Sketchbook - Yes! It’s been released. It seems like I’ve been waiting for an eternity for this book to come out. I checked it out in an old Thames & Hudson catalogue about 50 years ago (well, maybe not that long ago I suppose) and have been waiting ever since. You would think that such a long wait would end up in disappointment but you would be wrong. Tristan Manco, the author, has made it everything it could ever have been and so much more with more than 65 artists being included.

Street Sketchbook is a large scale chunky affair with nice rounded corners (to the pages too by the way) and looks like an enlarged used and abused moleskin sketchbook. Scribbled on, left under an artist’s workbench and splattered with paint, held together with masking tape etc. Beautifully used and abused in fact. When you look at some of the artists’ sketchbook covers below you’ll see that this one wouldn’t look out of place, which means that it’s a great design I guess.

The book is divided in two halves; Inside and Outside. As chapters like these often do, the lines often merge slightly from one to the other but as the names suggest, the Inside section is predominantly about the sketchbook’s use as an artistic canvas in itself. Nothing more and nothing less. Occasionally, like I said, the lines cross and the sketches are used as a basis for a painting, print or illustration etc. In fact, I’ve seen finished pieces over the years that must have been based on some of these drawings. However, these sketches are pieces of art in their own right. I’ll come back to this subject in a bit…

The second section, Outside, celebrates the sketchbook in the form of the classic blackbook where artists create their graff / streetart before going out and painting them proper. The images in this section vary enormously. Sometimes the images are quick scribbles from which as piece is based or that will inspire a piece. Other images look like they’ve been finely worked and re-worked intricate pieces that are made ready for transferring onto a wall verbatim. One of my favourite chapters belongs to Iemza. The twist that I love about his work is that his pieces, especially the ones shown in this book, literally look like the walls that he’s used have actually been sketched on and not painted. Take a look at his piece below and you’ll understand. Guy McKinley talks about wishing that someone would invent a huge Posca or ballpoint pen. Well I think that Iemza may have done so and he’s using it to great effect! Anyways, I had not heard of Iemza before and I’m just so glad I know about his work now…in fact, there’ll be a proper post about Iemza on Ektopia soon.

There are many fantastic artists include in this section. Pal’s drawings transfer t the walls perfectly as do Ponks (who is among the few orthodox graff writers included in this book..well, as orthodox as you could say his crazy style is!). Sat One’s intricate sketches are also brilliant with their anatomy fuelled style and Sypher’s type based work is calligralicious! There are of course lots of other artists including Ektopia faves like Mr Jago and we even get to see inside the Keyser Soze of graff’s (Banksy!) sketchbook so that in itself is a feat. All in all though, this part of the book contains quite an unorthodox and inspirational collection of artists, which helps to make this book so unique.

So, back to the beginning of the book; Inside. The reason I’ve left this section to last is because in my opinion it’s what makes this book so special. Simply calling some of these images “sketches” could be seen as almost an insult. For instance, Elph’s pencilled girl below. To value an image like that any less than an amazing piece of art, in my opinion, would just be unrealistic and this is what makes Street Sketchbook such a winning book for me. In seeing the inner workings, the base techniques if you will, we are introduced into a new world or artistic expression. Something that’s not normally on public show. Some hidden magic that would normally only be for the artist and the artists’ friends.

The 160 odd pages in this section make more than a book in themselves. The artists included here are much more familiar names for me. The majority of them have been posted about on Ektopia in the past and that means that there may be some kind of connection with my tastes that I hadn’t already realised. So what is it about these individuals over many of the others. Limited palates? Illustrative styles? Their visual narrative? I’m not sure. All I know is that I like nearly every single artist and image from these pages. You can almost imagine Will Barras (who designed the cover by the way) sketching onto these very pages and it’s amazing to see the relation between his sketching style and his finished pieces. The perfect example of this is his sketch for this piece. The aforementioned Guy McKinley’s sketches, like Elph’s, are wonderful artworks in their own right. Biro on paper with a master’s hand. So much expression and detail and a total absence of technology is inspirational. His sketches have always held my attention and seeing inside his private pages is a real honour. I could go on and on about the majority of the artists in this section but I won’t, you’ll just get bored of me rambling. Let me just say that the inclusion of people like Showchicken, Amose, Dist, Erosie, Richt, Microbo, 45rpm etc. etc. means that this book has many of the artists that I would have chosen if I was going to curate such a book.

Publishing heavyweights Thames & Hudson and Tristan Manco have really done the street-art brigade proud over the last few years producing some of graffiti’s finest books and by all accounts they are showing no sign of slowing or diluting down. Street Sketchbook is another classic in the making and certainly a luxurious look into the private workings of some of the worlds greatest street artists. Check out the links page to see the majority of included artists as there are too many to type here!

Street Sketchbook weighs in at 272 pages with more than 500 images and around 30 x 22cm and a hard round edged cover edition and as usual, price-wise, they are giving it away for less than the retail price of £20! You can get a copy direct from Thames & Hudson or from all the usual places including AmazonUK .