A part of starting something new, I think, is taking the time to explore how others do that something. For me-blogging is brand-spanking-new--I may read a lot of blogs and have friends who write regularly, but I have never taken a stab at it before now. I looked at a handful of sketching blogs by illustrators and designers that were recommended.
The first blog I visited was an open [sketch]book. Suzanne Cabrera's blog is fun and colorful, which I think is mostly attributed to the fact that her blog's background is white--the same color as her sketchbook's paper--so her drawings really pop off the screen. Her title block is inviting--the little illustration of sketchbooks with the title in a large, sans-serif font with the subtitle in a font similar to her handwriting (or may be her actual handwriting) incorporates the 2 mediums she uses to communicate--the computer and her hand. She opens up about her thought processes in her writing, and says outright that she wants to "make this a place you enjoy visiting every day by taking steps to include you in even more of my inspirations." (Entry from 09/16/10). Cabrera uses her blog as a way she can graphically document her thoughts, things she sees, or questions she wants to ask to share them with the world.
The second blog I went to was Edgar Cabrera’s. Cabrera is the husband of Suzanne Cabrera, the author of an open [sketch]book. The setup of his blog is similar to that of his wife, but is more structured--you can see the template that Blogger provides more than on an open [sketch]book. However, he still uses the same white background as his wife to showcase his work in the best possible way. Cabrera's work is both 2D and 3D--he does woodwork as well as illustration, which he brings together to show how he wants to construct a piece before he makes it. He uses many different formats for conveying his ideas:: boxy, gesture sketches, colorful and detailed illustrations and photos.
On Crack Skull Bob, I found the formatting to be similar to the last couple blogs I have seen; but I noticed that there is a regular schedule of images. Every Sunday he posts a sketch called “Sunday Morning Talking Heads,” a composite of all the political talking heads featured on the Sunday morning political talk shows, with sound bites written around these mini portraits. The way they’re set up graphically displays the confusion that many people experience when trying to follow politics. He also uses many mediums on top of one another. Some drawings look like black and white pen drawings, with coloring done on Photoshop, or some with coloring done by hand, and then enhanced on the computer.
Tommy Kane's site doesn't look like a Blogger site at all--he's developed a title banner to customize his site. When something is posted, it's described and given a reason for its existance. Drawings are scanned straight out of the sketchbook, making them look more real and not computer-generated. He was really the only blogger I saw who critiqued his own stuff, without doing it in a round-about way.
Wagonized is created by a completely different blog template--Typepad. I've never heard of Typepad before, but I can see the format differences. The organization of posts and images are on the left side, while the information and other links are on the right side, leaving the center--the most important part of the blog (the meat, if you will)--to display the content. There is a dichotomy in the final images on the screen; in some illustrations his work is almost scientific in its detail, while in others it's childish in its style but clear in its descriptiveness. He also admits and shows when things go wrong; which is more honest than the writing on other blogs.
The final blog I looked at belongs to Andrea Joseph. Her blog is rougher than others; her scanned sketches show the binding in her Moleskine journals. She takes the time to break down how a drawing is made and guides her readers through the process, step-by-step, so that they can make their own detailed hatching sketch of a shoe--just like Jackson.
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