I was going to post about the new James Jean book Process Recess 2 but then I realized I never posted about the first one. So here is a double post with pictures and description of both.
Process Recess
James Jean is an amazing master at drawing. I learned this after purchasing Process Recess. It’s a small textbook thick book of full of five years worth of sketchbook pages. They are incredible. This guy can really render perfectly. He also seems to capture an energy in his drawings from life so they don’t seem too photographic. I love seeing these pages where he was just drawing things around him, gestures of hands, subway passengers, a fine architectural detail. The pages are also covered in notes. The images have been scaled down a lot from their original size so you usually can’t read what he has written filling the empty space. It seems most of his sketchbooks didn’t have white paper but more of tan, creme color. When he uses white in highlights in the drawings it really makes them pop off the page. Sometimes the juxtposition of his drawings on a page are so interesting- it couldn’t be accidental. For example, a nude figure drawings of a man lunging is drawn overlapping a drawing of an train car interior making it seem as if he is crawling out of the space. I also love the variety of media he uses- from ballpoint pen to watercolor, to what seems to be colored pencil or conte crayon. Each page is really a masterpiece. The sketchbooks are broken up by year or place into different sections. There is also a small section of paintings and a small section called Recess with some more finished illustrations.
Process Recess 2
I was shocked when this spiral bound book came in the mail. It is very big- 15.6 x 11 to be exact. I guess since Process Recess was so small I was expecting a companion. It’s really an interesting book showing all the steps of sketches James does to get to a finished piece. The book is laid out with the full color, finished illustration on one side (the paper is nice and thick so you could cut these out of the book and frame them as prints- James even gives you a cut line on every page for framing them in a standard 11×14 frame. That’s what I call affordable art.) On the back of the page is the sketches he did for the illustration. Some have three different sketches variations and some are even colored. James numbers each sketch so he can mention the medium and paper he used to create it. I like to compare the sketches and see what he decided to change from the last. It’s also amazing to see how color can play such a huge role in making an image come to life. For some of the illustrations he showed just the color step- the Photoshop fill and shading layer. Some of the pages even fold out giving you the chance to see the illustration and matching sketch super big. The back of the book has a few cool sketches of his studio and the very last two pages are full of pretty photographs, I assume he took for inspiration.
Both these books seem so personal, a real look at James thoughts, interests and decision making as an artist. It’s a treat that he has made these books to share with us. He also has an extensive website and blog here where you can see tons of his commercial work and pages from sketchbooks from 1999 to present. He also has a store where you can buy prints of many of his works at really affordable prices.
(Coming Soon– if you like seeing James sketchbooks you’ll love the new series I’m going to do starting next month. Once a week I’ll be posting photos of the insides of some of my favorite (and hopefully your favorites too) artist’s sketchbooks. So many amazing artists have agreed to be part of this series so far, I was amazed at the response and how nice everyone is. So look forward to that a few other exciting new things here soon.)
