Remember my latest project, my book on sketching people? Well, I set-to on it straight away and, within a few days, submitted a synopsis to my editor, laying out exactly what I wanted to talk about.
It was an interesting process, trying to marshal my thoughts. It's hard when you have been doing something for a long time: so much becomes instinctive. I had to remind myself of all the different things I know, think about what other people might need help with, and then try and organise everything logically into chapters. The synopsis ran to 6 pages!
The good news is, I have had the thumbs-up on the plan. My editor has made a few suggestions, and has an extra chapter she wants me to add, but basically she says it is thorough and nicely structured. So I'm feeling rather pleased with myself.
The next step has been to go through all my sketchbooks, matching drawings to topics. There are around 80 sketchbooks, so goodness knows how many sketches. We decided to try a colour-coded system of bookmarks. I pulled out 16 main themes from the synopsis which we needed to illustrate. Each theme has a colour. We then went through the books, popping colour-coded bookmarks in all the pages I might want to scan for the book.
The next step has been to go through all my sketchbooks, matching drawings to topics. There are around 80 sketchbooks, so goodness knows how many sketches. We decided to try a colour-coded system of bookmarks. I pulled out 16 main themes from the synopsis which we needed to illustrate. Each theme has a colour. We then went through the books, popping colour-coded bookmarks in all the pages I might want to scan for the book.
At least there's no shortage, but it's a bit overwhelming. We have luckily had some gorgeous weather, so at the start we were able to work outside in the garden, which was glorious:
Until John started to sneeze. He's never had hayfever before. His nose was literally running like a tap! Even an anti-histamine had no effect.
So, the following day, we moved base-camp to the courtyard, away from most the flowering plants and that seemed to sort it out. He's definitely alergic to something specific as, the moment he went up the top to try and mow the lawn, it happened again (very convenient that).
Anyway, the idea of the bookmarks is that I will take one theme at a time and select the best few images from the ones we marked as possible contenders. Then John will start scanning, while I begin the next stage of writing.
So, the following day, we moved base-camp to the courtyard, away from most the flowering plants and that seemed to sort it out. He's definitely alergic to something specific as, the moment he went up the top to try and mow the lawn, it happened again (very convenient that).
Anyway, the idea of the bookmarks is that I will take one theme at a time and select the best few images from the ones we marked as possible contenders. Then John will start scanning, while I begin the next stage of writing.
8 comments:
A scanning assistant! I wish I'd thought of that!
Can I recommend highly organised folders for all your images - including one for every contributor and one for every section. It's the only thing that kept me sane as we neared the end!
Yes, thanks Katherine. We spent some time trying to work out the best filing system. John has downloaded a bit of photo-album software that will let us create 'virtual folders' using tagging, because the trouble is that quite a lot of the sketches could potentially fit in several of the categories - nightmare!
Hi Lynne and Katherine, this is really interesting to me as I'm just starting on the same journey (same publisher as you, Katherine). I'm using Evernote. I use it for uni online file management and seems to be ok so far..but it's early days!! I also have negotiated some intern help - but not in-house like you Lynne! I shall follow your progress with interest. best wishes S.
Great news Simone - congratulations! What's your theme (or is it a general Urban Sketching one, like Thor's)?
Thanks Lynne - to you too of course! It's architecturally focused, similar in style to James (Hobbs)'Sketch your World' with added architecture! It's with Rotovision - same publisher as SYW and Katherine's book.
It looks as though I will have to create a new budget category - new art books - looking forward to these with great interest.
Fantastic, Lynne!! Looking forward to it. Hope it will be available in America (or Amazon America), too. Your sketching series/entries are so inspiring for me!!
--Jill from California
I read this sketching book and this book picture is very beautiful and i present this book to my son and he like this thanks for share it analyzing quantitative data .
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