Robert Scholten takes us on a drawn journey through Japan. Flip through his sketchbook and it's as if you're riding along right beside him, in almost every form of transportation – "airplane, bus, car, train, ferry – you name it!"

Mark Powell makes incredible drawings on vintage envelopes dating back to 1852. He uses a simple Bic Biro pen to draw these aged faces that are as full of creases and texture as the envelopes they sit on.

I first discovered Julia Grigorieva's artwork because of her colorful and playful patterns of cats, birds, dragons and a whole bunch more, but I recently came upon her sketchbook and got a peak into how fun and creative she is outside of her commercial illustration work. Everything she touches comes to life and makes you smile from ear to ear. Enjoy.

Sometimes when I'm feeling sad or lost, I doodle. But I've always been a bit ashamed of the doodling I do when I'm not in an upbeat headspace. It's darker and sketchier than my normal stuff. There's a lot of confusing patterns and sad faces. As soon as my pen comes off the paper, all I want to do is scrunch it up and throw it away - maybe because it feels cathartic to get rid of it, but also because I have this notion in my head that doodling should always be playful and happy and fun!

But it doesn't always have to be, does it? I mean, if doodling is an honest chat between your brain and the paper, it can't always be just sunshine and kitten faces and those happy little circle patterns. Sometimes the pen digs in a little deeper.



I started thinking about all this after finding the online sketchbook of 17-year-old Jenny from South Carolina. She posts up pretty doodlings that speak about hopelessness and feeling lost. It quite intimate to scroll through and hear her inner thoughts... like when you notice someone, and they're smiling or whatever, but then for a second you catch a sadness in their eyes and you know that their mind is elsewhere for a moment.

Anyhow, I'm glad Jenny didn't scrunch these up and throw them away, they're lovely.

Erika Kuhn has some of the most dark, moody and dramatic sketchbooks I've ever seen. It's personal. It's stimulating. It's plenty full of angst and beauty and love and passion. Viewing the images on DA hardly give them justice, as she's always presenting them in the context of her poetic words, so be sure to visit her blog (she writes in Spanish, but Google translate will give you the gist of it).

I am curious what comes first for her. Is it the melodramatic words that accompany and inspire each of her sketchbook drawings or the other way around, with the drawings inspiring the words? To be honest, it doesn't even matter, I am in love.

It's been a while since I've seen the movies, but as far as I remember, when Indiana Jones finds buried treasure, he barely lets out a little squeal under his breath. He's also probably too cool to start hiccupping because he's JUST. SO. DELIGHTED with what he's found today!

Me though? When I find buried treasure, I'm hardly cool about it. So when illustrator John Hersey emailed me these exclusive sketchbook doodlings, you better believe I was making all sorts of awkward noises under my breath! (Apologies to my fellow cafe-patrons who were trying to quietly sip their lattes at the time).



So far these doodlings have only been seen by John, his kids... and now we're JUST. SO. DELIGHTED to dust them off and share them with you guys! Enjoy.

There is something absurdly creative about Bill Mayer's sketches. He took postal stamps of historical figures and sketched scenes around them, capturing the personality of the subject with simple strokes. Call it a fringe event, but I was so engaged in each one, that the remainder of the open white space drew itself further in my mind. Kinda freaky really.