I have a terrible habit of jumping from sketchbook to sketchbook, starting a new one before filling the pages of whichever one I’m currently working in. But I really like the idea of filling each sketchbook and I greatly admire artists who seem to have no trouble doing this. On the rare occasion I fill an entire sketchbook, it is so satisfying to flip through! It just feels like it takes some sort of sorcery to make it happen on a regular basis. Like I need a special sketchbook. Just the right one. I’ve yet to find it though and have quite a few empty pages in the books in my studio, so I’ve started filling my half-completed ones and have forbid myself to buy a new book until the books I have are all full. It’s been a slow go…but it’s going.
This problem is not unique to me. The potential a brand new blank sketchbook holds for an artist is just so dang tempting. It’s near impossible to resist a new sketchbook!
What if this is the one?! This is the sketchbook that will be impossible to make a bad drawing in. It holds no faults or bad juju (like all the other, half-filled books do) and it will be the one that unlocks whatever magic those artists who fill their sketchbooks have.
This isn’t true, of course. Magic does not come in notebooks. There’s no cosmic dust sprinkled into the pages before they’re bound into the cover, packaged and boxed, and shipped in big trucks to the shops.
But there is magic I think. Sort-of. It comes in the dedication of consistently making and it is put there by the artist. And even if the drawings turn out awkward, the magic is happening in the act of creation. To create something is to see and understand more deeply ourselves and the world around us and when you unlock an understanding, it does feel a bit magical.
Trying to stay super loose with my linework. I love how the spiral binding turned out on this sketch!
Maybe I’ll start referring to my sketchbooks as something else. Something that will remind me that it’s a place to practice my magic.
Will think on this and report back. Open to suggestions!
Yours in Creativity,
Hannah
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