Craig Thompson has replied to my comment on his blog at http://blog.dootdootgarden.com/2008/01/13/constructing-carnet/#comments !
This is what I originally wrote on his blog last month:
Craig,
I am an Illustartion student in London and I am going to reference you in an essay, I was wondering if I could maybe answer you a few questions for me, in particular about Carnet de voyage. For example, on your website, you say that it is more on-the-spot then your other carefully constructed books but just how on-the-spot was it? How much of the imagery in the novel was actually done on site? Or was most of it developed from on site sketches into more final ink drawings? And if a lot of the ink drawings were done straight from life, were they then pieced together digitally on the computer to give the travelogue more of a structure and profesionalism? The reason I am asking is because our whole project has been about making drawings from life in peopled situations? And I was also wondering how you capture a scenery that is constantly moving (all those bustling Morrocan streets for example) without the use of photographs? Is it a matter of filling in gaps with imagination and focusing on different aspects individually?
Ok well I would be very grateful if you could answer my questions, thank you for your attention and a Happy New Year!
Best Regards,
Yana
I was originally going to use his answers in my essay but unfortunately I only left a week between contacting him and the deadline for the essay but still I’m really glad he answered and this really does give me a better idea of how he worked during the time he kept his travelogue and gives me more consideration for my own journal keeping. I didn’t consider before that I could make still make drawings on site and then afterwards arrange them into a more presentable ‘comic’ form to make it more fluent and presentable. It didn’t even occur to me to keep two sketchbooks, one for drawing on site and the other for planning the eventual presentation like Thompson did. So his answer to me will perhaps serve to inform me for further projects. Also just thinking about how he said he’d spend hours getting sunburnt and harrassed by locals drawing the architecture, I think there’s something to be said for getting the best results when you put the most time and effort into something, certainly my most productive and experimentative days were ones I spent at the reservoir on my own sitting for hours getting cold, creating imagery and I’m sure if I had devoted more time to keeping a journal in the US, I would have produced far more coherent imagery but as it was I spent more time with my family.
