Pablo Amargo actually wrote to me asking me to take a look at his sketchbooks to consider them for the blog. I wrote him back immediately. I feel in love with his work which really reminded me a bit of Saul Bass’s. Pablo is located in Spain where he illustrates for all different clients. He has illustrated a whole bunch of books-which hopefully he will send me copies of to share in the future. For now we can enjoy these sketchbook pages full of amazing experiments in black, white and grays. I love how simple and bold his designs can be and how he has designed his own paragraphs of writings around his drawings. He also collages right into the pages with flat colored paper layering the graphics. I asked Pablo to tell me a little bit about his work since his site in all in Spanish. Here’s what he had to say:

Without any doubt my favourite pleasure is to illustrate books. I also enjoy illustrating others formats like posters, press and magazines. Anyway, I consider every one of my works unique so I spend a lot of time involved with each of my illustrations. When I consider a text in order to illustrate it, I like to play in my illustrations with it´s words and different meanings. I think this approach allows me to create different compositions for my illustrations and a greater degree of originality.

Being that illustration such an important part of my life and a fundamental way of expression for me I always carry with me a sketchbook that I use to draw during my free time, nights asleep and every day after lunch I spend an hour drawing in it. I have to say that these drawings are done just for the pleasure of drawing. And they don´t neccessarily relate with my work as a professional illustrator, they are better notebooks of my inner thoughts and personal meditations.My favourite notebooks to draw my sketches in are the common ones, always with their pages blank. Sometimes I use the famous Molskine in different sizes. For the content and techniques of my sketches I like to make simple drawings and even collages with press colour cutouts. In my sketchbooks I reflect my travels, the places where I´ve been, even versions of pictures or Art that impress me (Manet, Picasso… etc).Above all I love to draw human figures, faces, anatomies, objects and everything that captures my attention.

Pablo has won numerous awards for his illustrations for children’s books. You can see a list of those among tons of other work on his website here. He has posted his full spreads of sketchbook pages here- I have just picked details of my favorites to show below. Enjoy!

© Julia Rothman 2007