John Richardson’s sketches and ideas for the lino cuts he did for our book, Caught by the River – A Collection of Words on Water;
“Sketchbooks and notebooks are the basic foundations of all my work. They are used for research, information gathering, ideas and development work and a repository of memories. Always a Moleskine in A5 or A6 size, they fit your pocket nicely and feel good to use. Away on holiday; ‘don’t send a postcard, fill us a sketchbook’ say the ‘kids’. No pressure then.
When I was first at art school in Middlesbrough in the early 1960’s a tutor told me to stop carrying my ideas and research in my head and get it down on paper. That was the moment the sketchbook became an everyday item. The first time the tutor saw the ‘new’ sketchbooks he said ‘that they looked like the visual ramblings of a deranged mind’.
My family would say nothing has changed”.
