Street Artist’s Week
I can’t honestly say I’m the biggest fan of graffiti. I get very upset when something new shows up scrawled across the side of our apartment building. And I hate that I have to look at “Dips” written in thick black marker on our front door every day. But I do enjoy really nice graffiti or “street art”. I like spotting the huge Neckface hairy arm on the roof of an industrial building in our neighborhood or a really old Espo written in big blocky letters up high on a billboard. And I love seeing the work of Swoon pasted in an alleyway in Brooklyn. This week I thought I would pay tribute to the great street art that’s out there starting with this new book of street artist’s sketchbooks. Tristan Marco, the author, has written many books on the subject and has been documenting walls for years. Here he has collected the sketchbooks from over sixty-five artists worldwide. It’s great to see some of the thought process of these artists. The sketchbooks are full of doodles, character designs, typography experiments, architectural style drawings and drawings from life. The huge range of styles in this book surprised me and I was excited to be introduced to some new amazing artists. The book is big and nicely laid out with images of the sketchbooks at nearly their full size. Get excited to see many many more images from the sketchbooks of one of the artists featured in this book on Friday for the Sketchbook Series. You can pick up a copy of this book here.

© Julia Rothman 2007