Category: Sketchbook

In continuation of previous posts about Harald Siepermann’s sketchbook illustrations, below are more sketches from his 1984 sketchbook. Harald Siepermann was 21/22 years old and still a student Graphic Design at the Folkwang University in Essen, Germany.

“I was really, really having fun doing these, I was drawing constantly, on the train, in front of the TV, having breakfast,” commented Harald Siepermann in 2006 about these sketches. “It was like a newly discovered playground. Unlike today I was drawing not for money, just for fun. This was about the time that I discovered, how much fun it was to go really wild and over the top, and that I would get away with doing roughs instead of clean, finished paintings and at the same time I was accomplishing a certain security about the whole process, not least through peoples positive reactions on things that I had kept for myself until then.”

“All these thing were done without thinking, just letting it flow,” Siepermann commented, “improvising, like a pianist would improvise at a piano, that was the fun about it and the great relief, I was finally among people who could read a drawing and see its potential, didn’t have to do clean-ups anymore, to make an impression.”

Harald Siepermann often used songs as a source of inspiration drawing subjects, “I was using their lyrics as a source of inspiration, I was kinda listening for cues, illustrating their songs or people from them,” he commented about his sketch work in 2006. “I was, without thinking, doing little character design studies. This again ‘just happened’, I never thought about it as a concept, I was just desperately looking for things to draw, and I always preferred stuff from my imagination rather than drawing existing people, mimicking styles or doing landscapes.”

Below are several sketches from one of Harald Siepermann’s sketchbook from 1985, based on the song Every Sperm is Sacred from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.

In this post you’ll find several drawings from Harald Siepermann’s 1985 sketchbook. At that time Harald was in his early twenties and studying Graphic Design at the Folkwang University in Essen, Germany. Searching for content to draw, he turned to popular German songs, and turned the lyrics into cartoonish characters.

“I had developed the habit to listen a lot to German chansons, what we call Liedermacher over here, probably because they were telling little 3 act stories in their songs, sometimes silly sometimes full of pathos,” commented Harald Siepermann. “I was using their lyrics as a source of inspiration, I was kinda listening for cues, illustrating their songs or people from them. I was, without thinking, doing little character design studies. This again ‘just happened’, I never thought about it as a concept, I was just desperately looking for things to draw, and I always preferred stuff from my imagination rather than drawing existing people, mimicking styles or doing landscapes.”

Here are some of Harald Siepermann’s scary sketches that fit the Halloween season. The sketches come from Harald Siepermann’s 1983 portfolio book, as can be seen in the last two images below.

“Harald was always drawing,” many of his friends, family and colleagues tell about Harald Siepermann. Harald drew sketchbooks full with caricatures, funny wizards, all kind of animals combined, cartoon characters, etc. Here are some illustrations from Harald Siepermann’s sketchbook from the early 1980’s. During this period he was studying Graphic Design at the Folkwang Academy in Essen. On a daily basis he traveled with the railway from his home in Hattingen to school, which took about 2 hours. He used his time efficiently by drawing in his sketchbook.