Best Sketchbook Ever

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Not necessarily the best, but certainly the biggest. This sketchbook was given to me by Gloria Moyer, the art director at Longman Publishing. I had been illustrating one of their English As A Second Language textbooks, and Gloria had noticed that I carried a sketchbook with me everywhere. She presented me with one of Longman’s dummy dictionaries, a bound book with blank pages made to give them an idea what the real dictionary would eventually look like. I have never counted the pages, but they must number in the thousands. To give you some idea of its dimensions, I would ordinarily go through three or four sketchbooks a year in those days. This book I carried around for about five years, 1984- 1988. Having so many pages kind of unleashed the floodgates for me,and the book contains a wide variety of drawings.Eventually I constructed this jacket from cardboard and masking tape to protect the covers:

cover

David Chelsea is listening to:
Little French Songs
by Carla Bruni

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RIP, Ed Koch

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who died this week, appeared frequently in The New York Observer’s Eight Day Week column during the years I was illustrating it. After leaving office he wore many hats, including restaurant and movie critic; I suspect he’s giving the thumbs-up gesture in the above drawing in that capacity.

David Chelsea is listening to:
Switched on Bach
by Wendy Carlos

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