James Hobbs’ Sketchbook Reveal presents unedited, personal drawings
FOR INMEDIATE RELEASE
To request a copy of Sketchbook Reveal for review or other media inquiries, please contact: Gabriel Campanario, publisher, Sketcher Press, 15833 Mill Creek Blvd, #12122, Mill Creek, WA 98082, USA, (425) 686-2398
Mill Creek, WA — London artist and author James Hobbs has published a unique collection of drawings in Sketchbook Reveal, available now from Sketcher Press. The 128-page, large-format, hardbound book reveals visual observations spanning nearly 50 years.
“What are my sketchbooks trying to tell me?” After filling 206 volumes over the course of his adulthood, Hobbs ponders the stories their contents reveal. The thousands of drawings themselves are documentation of his observations, ideas and creative growth. Viewed collectively, however, a larger narrative unfolds. Captured regularly and spontaneously over a lifetime, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Raw, unedited, without “curation” for an audience, all pages within seven of Hobbs’ sketchbooks are presented in their entirety. In each section, a few pages are reproduced full size to give the reader an experience that is as close as possible to holding the actual sketchbook. Even the images of worn, dirty covers show the evidence of weeks or months of constant companionship.
Like a written diary, Sketchbook Reveal gives the reader an opportunity to peek into Hobbs’ internal life – but with permission and invitation. With decades of hindsight that lead to insight, the author offers context and reflection. “I have chosen to reveal all, including the duds, ink stains, battered covers, scribbled notes, and the incomplete or abandoned,” Hobbs says. “The reality of using a sketchbook from day to day, as I do, is that the drawings in them will trace the normal — perhaps mundane — moments and events that we all experience, if we open our eyes to them.”
Included is the first sketchbook the author completed in art school while searching for a voice. Later books are about family life, the pandemic, political demonstrations, and major personal events, such as the death of his father. “Some drawings, I realise now, have a deeper significance to me today than when I made them,” Hobbs says. “It can take time for it to become apparent what a drawing is really about.”
About the author
London-based artist James Hobbs is the author of Sketch Your World and Pen and Ink. He was editor of Artists & Illustrators magazine, and freelanced for the Guardian, New Statesman and the Art Newspaper. His work has been selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize show and sold at IKEA stores worldwide. Hobbs lives with his wife in Stoke Newington, north London. See more at www.james-hobbs.co.uk or @jameshobbsart.
