Drawing Like a Child

I'm often asked what's happening with my sketchbookproject. Well ... it happens ...
I was a little bit overwhelmed by my story that I want to tell and the fact, that I can't draw. Why didn't I choose any abstract theme or something nice in mixed media? Click the photos for original size!

I will tell the story of Gladstone and me. Family and emigration are important to understand the background.

I'm fiddling against my incapability to draw using letters and collage technics, drawing like a child. And so the story is growing. I decided to use excerpts from the original shipping papers of 1923, hand-writing them on a folder. They are combinated with real pics of the examination process in Ellis Island and a list of "races", that had to be used by every ship owner. My family got the label "Bohemian", a fact that will be connected to the history of Cleveland.

Excerpts from the original shipping papers of 1923

There's also a drawing of the real ship, the S.S. George Washington, which has a story itself: It was the famous ship which warned the S.S. Titanic of the iceberg in 1912, in vain. During WWW I it was used as an American war-ship and later made the route between the USA and Europe.

The "List of races or peoples" every ship owner had to show ar Ellis Island.

I will tell the story of Gladstone and me. Family and emigration are important to understand the background. How could I explain this in one picture? Well, I tried it and I am still too near on writing novels: There's always too much on one page.

S.S. George Washington

So have a short look and forgive me the fact that I'm producing a sketchbook without the ability to sketch ...