I ordered a couple of new sketchbooks.
I can't express to you how weird that is.
All my adult life I've started sketchbooks, got a page or two in, and that was that. And here I am reordering, all of a sudden? Weird.
I should explain a bit, I guess. When I say all my adult life, I'm only talking about two or three sketchbooks. I've never been very good at sketchbooks. Oh, I start out with the best of intentions -- you know, trying to keep things loose, not caring if things are exactly what I'd hoped, reminding myself that I'm doing this for practice and not for show -- but it never seems to take long before my OLF self gets dissatisfied and starts to get all perfectionist. That's never a good thing with sketchbooks, because if you start wanting to make the sketchbook perfect and it isn't you soon find yourself not wanting to open the sketchbook at all.
There's also the problem of paper. I've mentioned this before, but I'm a very tactile person when it comes to playing with art stuff, and for me one of the worst sins a sketchbook can commit is having boring paper. Case in point? My field sketchbook, which is currently being cannibalised bit by bit for other projects. I was full of enthusiasm when I started because I'd never really done much field sketching, and to be fair I did end up doing a little. The paper in the book, though, was sooo boooring that I found myself doodling on anything BUT the sketchbook when I went outside on the trails.
So, yeah. Between perfectionism and boredom, sketchbooks have never gone all that well for me. So can anybody explain to me, then, why I only have one page left in my watercolour sketchbook and three in my pocket sketchbook? What, exactly, changed?
I suppose pocket sketchbook might be a clue. It's small. It's always in my purse, along with a set of Prismacolor pigment pens. It's no pressure to fill a page while I'm sitting around waiting for something. Plus (and this may be a big insight into my warped brain, I don't know), the first thing I did when I got it was doodle all over the inside covers to make sure that it wasn't pristine. There, weirdo. Just try to make this perfect. It's already not perfect, and you can't change that. Pressure's off.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But you do what you have to, I guess.
The watercolour book is a little harder to fathom, because I'm most emphatically not a painter. I don't have the foggiest clue what I'm doing when it comes to painting. Getting a watercolour book to begin with was a leap of... I was going to say faith, but stupidity might be a better word. How have I managed to finish a book? Plodding along, mostly. And it became a place to experiment. That's what it was supposed to be, really, but this is the first time that something like this has worked out that way for me. Not everything in the book is great (in fact, most of the book is pretty awful), but even I have to admit that there are a couple or three things that I'd save if I decided to take the book apart.
Ah, now there's a question. Will the finished books stay intact, or will I rip them to pieces? Honestly, I don't know. I've never finished one sketchbook before, let alone two. The pocket book will likely stay together (whether I keep it or chuck it is the question there) because I've drawn across the fold each time so it's pretty much impossible to remove those doodles. The watercolour book, though. Actually, there's at least one thing in there that I might consider framing.
Yes, framing a watercolour. Done by me. Told you this was odd.
Anyway. I've made my online order since it's cheaper to get what's apparently become my book of choice that way (and might I just say here, rather theatrically, DAAAMN YOU MOLESKINE! I so desperately wanted to not like the first moleskine I bought because they're comparatively expensive and I didn't want to get sucked in by the hype, but... sigh. Paper, did I mention? And it's amazing how important a simple piece of elastic can be), and in a little while I will actually be starting new sketchbooks because my old ones are finished.
I don't know who I am anymore.
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