One morning I came out to go to work and after trying to be quiet in the house I was getting my coat and a small voice came from the back bedroom; “I found your sketchbook on the floor in the hallway last night before going to bed, I left it on the counter for you, don’t forget it.” I looked up from putting my shoes on and saw the tiny book in the leather case sitting on the corner of the counter as if she had put it specifically in my path so I would not overlook it. I smiled at the fact that my wife had yet again, looked out for my best interest. Smiling, I said back, “Thanks, it would have been a rough day without my little friend.” “Oh, I didn’t do it for you Honey, I did it for everyone else you’re going to come into contact with today.” I laughed to myself and realized EXACTLY what she meant, if I don’t get a chance to be SOMEWHAT creative during the course of the day, I get a little … cranky.
When I was at Art School, I had an Instructor who continually got after me for two reasons. The first, I NEVER used a pencil to sketch anything out – thumbnails, ideas, thoughts, anything, it was always a pen, specifically a fountain pen and the BRIGHTER the color the better. I just thought they were classy and stylish. I’m afraid I missed the point of being able to draw gently and being able to erase things right there. I was always of the thought to get it in my head first, then put it on paper so that by the time the pen touches paper, the idea was pretty much done. Unfortunately, by the time I would turn in roughs and thumbnails, my instructor would already be screaming at me that, “This was NOT how the process works.” I didn’t care, I knew what I liked and I DIDNT like the process. It always seemed a little too stiff for me.
The second thing she always got after me for was a sketchbook; a place to keep your ideas, both finished and unfinished, good and bad and most importantly, a place where you can “park” creative ideas and come back to them at a later date. I never got that until I became older and I started selling my artwork more and more. It was a great place for record keeping and idea parking. A place where I could just jot something down quickly and come back to it later to work through. Assignment holder, dump zone, even a grocery list holder and it has been this way now for years.
What I was NOT prepared for was that if I opened up and “vomited creativity” (someone else’s words for it not mine) in them, how quickly they would start stacking up! Counting just the last 5 years, I am currently at the end of my FOURTEENTH book and my wife guards them with her life – I have filled other books and one of my sisters has been the recipient of those! 144 pages per book, 14 books, that’s 2,016 pages if I get the math right; not bad for a couple of years.
These little books are more than an area for me to put things literally, they are my counterparts, my secret keepers. They are something that I can pull out real quick, do some figuring, and then make it disappear by stuffing them into a pocket.
I have seen a fellow artist/illustrator make small videos of just flipping through his sketchbooks, maybe I should consider that myself. Until then I’ll just hold onto my little books 🙂
The book is better known than I am!
Do you have something like this? Journal, sketchbook, or even a diary? Comment below, I’d love to hear that I am not the ONLY one that does this. Also, if you have a hack to help me organize a single sketchbook or all of them together in some sort of presentation “thing” I would love to hear about that as well.
Until next time, don’t let ‘em get to you, you are far too important for that!
