Building a visual library

In his artbook The Hobbit Sketchbook, wonder | wander | women favourite Alan Lee talks about the way he collects visual references by drawing them into his sketchbook.

Historical costume studies for our book project

Alan Lee: "If I am searching the internet or reference books for costumes or architecture, I will sketch quick copies of the most useful examples so that it is all available at a glance. Having photographic reference is useful, but we see an object in a different way after having looked at it closely enough to draw it, and it becomes more firmly fixed in the imagination."

Drawing Asian facial features

Many concept artists, illustrators and filmmakers talk about developing a visual library: a hoard of images, references, patterns, colours and ideas to dig into whenever they start a new project. We have thousands of pictures saved in various folders and devices, but the best way to understand the reference is to practice drawing it ourselves.

Statues from the Louvre and Orsay in Paris

Drawing figures and costumes help us understand how drapery and anatomy work, how three-dimensional and organic objects move and interact. Translating the photos to sketches not only make us more familiar with textures and materials, but we also learn to interpret them into our own style, or simplify them into a clearer shape.

More historical costume studies

Illustrator evydraws on Youtube explains her visual library in this video: "Let me know if you too have endless folders of reference materials, Pinterest boards, photos, paintings of old masters, movie stills, colour palettes, and figure drawing poses...and then let me know how often you actually look at all those references and remember where they are all organised when you sit down to draw."

She explains that a visual library is "a collection of sketches that takes those endless references and brings them into some kind of cohesion. It's a place where you can distill the overwhelming visual input into something easier to digest, that you can return to whenever you start a new illustration."

Architecture sketches

We are currently organising our many journals and sketchbooks into categories, like the folders of saved photos. The simple practice of drawing from reference creates a muscle memory that comes into play when we begin drawing from imagination, but the visual library is the backbone that gives our wildest visions a solid foundation.

Royal Palace from a personal project