My notebook is having an identity crisis
It's mutated into one of my favourite sketchbooks
I’ve become obsessed with memory keeping. With each year that passes, I feel the need to document everything in my brain onto some analogue space. Basic stuff like to-do’s, packing lists, to more meaningful moments, like conversations with friends I don’t want to forget.
It started in late 2017, when I moved to Germany from London. I bought myself a shiny new Leuchtturm Notebook, (only right to choose a German brand!) and started using it as my ‘central brain’. It became the place I would capture and process my thoughts and experiences: - a catch all for everything I wanted to get out of my brain and attempt to make sense of. These notebooks have become a capture of my life since leaving London and I have kept up the practice. I get so much pleasure from gazing at these beauties on my shelf.
The way I use them has evolved and changed depending on what’s going on. I no longer worry about the aesthetic of the pages, I don’t follow any systems. Although I have been heavily inspired by Bullet journalling, I use my own loose way of navigating my brain through these pages.
I also fill sketchbooks like my life depends on it:
Generally speaking, the Notebooks and Sketchbooks stayed in their own lanes. Rarely did the contents of one cross-pollinate into the other. I NEED both to hold different parts of my brain, and I keep them separate. Words in one, pictures in the other.
Lately, however, I have notice this change.
There is an ease to reaching for my writing pen and idly doodling a thought or sketch on the page. It is carefree, uncomplicated, easy line work.
i’m usually already at my desk, distracting myself from what I SHOULD be doing. Then I’ll remember a conversation with a friend, and feel the need to document it.
Beginnings of ideas for zines, or mini comics I could make? Possibly, maybe.
Some days, it’s just a way to make space for feelings.
Recently, I’ve just felt like my notebook is the perfect companion to podcasts and Live conversations that have been particularly inspiring and motivating. These visual notes are rough, not ‘presentation worthy’, and yet they embed the experience of listening deeper into my brain, and simultaneously gives me a way to relax. Weird, but true.
It’s taken me a ‘hot minute’ to realise this, but seriously, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING can be a sketchbook, right?
Quite the ‘no shit, Sherlock’ moment.
I know it sounds basic, but when you realise that you can just draw on anything, with any pen, and that realisation suddenly ‘clicks’ in your head - there is suddenly a sense of freedom.
The realisation that any piece of paper can BE THERE FOR YOU. The Notebook may not have been intended for drawing, but it’s become its own space for capturing moments that matter.
It has taken me a while to get to this point, because I DO love to obsess over the perfect pairing of tools to sketchbook. I used to be horrified by a buckled page that wasn’t design for wet media, and god forbid there’s ever any show-through on the other side of the paper with a dreaded alcohol marker. It would drive me nuts, and I would abandon the whole book because it would irritate me so much.
No longer. It seems I have matured. It seems I have chilled the F-out (a bit.) (No need to ask for verification from my family about this, btw.)
The pages of my notebook remind me that there is SO much value and joy in:
The simple pleasure of the ‘right’ pen meeting the surface of the paper.
The Mitsubishi Uniball Eye + Leuchtturm book is the perfect pairing. For me, it’s the pen that belongs to the book, and as a result, anything and everything can be expressed with it.The joy of line. I keep coming back to line - in every medium, every material, I just love line. These fast rough sketches scribbled in mere minutes remind me that line can hold all the information with amazing economy. Using only one material is so freeing.
Challenge the idea of ‘finished’. Not everything needs to be developed into something ‘properly done’. Not every idea needs to turn into a project. Maybe the version that exists on this page, in its raw form, is enough. (Crazy, right?!)
My Notebooks teach me things my Sketchbooks can’t. The no expectation space of the notebook is fertile ground for anything to happen. It does not have to perform for me, it just gives me space to download all my ‘ugly’ and ‘crazy’ onto the page. Once its out, my head is finally clear. It’s a kind of magic.
STOP looking for your style. Seriously. Just stop with this existential search already. Your style is right there, every time you draw. Just. Keep. Drawing. I know, no one wants to hear that. (Remember when they said you’d find your true love as soon as you stop looking? Well that’s rubbish…but trust me on the finding your style thing…) They WERE right about it being a game of numbers though - drawing a LOT matters.
I’d love to know:
Do you move between notebooks and sketchbooks?
How do you organise your brain externally? Analogue, Digital or both?
Where do your creative breakthroughs happen?
Just tell me about your notebooks because I’m nosey and I want to know. I’m talking paper choice, brand, favourite pens, all of it. Thanks.
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I love this. I too believe the Leuchtturm and Uniball are magic together. Perfection.
I have journaled pretty regularly since I was in middle school, so I've used a variety of things over the years, and journaled for different purposes at different points in my life. I had chunky Miquelrius notebooks with graph paper forever as sort of a diary/commonplace book (before I knew what a commonplace book was) but then waffled around between Moleskines and Leuchtturms for several years, and have now settled comfortably in to Archer and Olive dot grids for my journaling. I like that I can add some liquid media to the pages and it's not destroyed. I don't keep a commonplace book/notebook really anymore, unless you consider the notes app in my phone. Which is sad, now that I think about it.
I just started keeping sketchbooks regularly. Right now, I love Royal Talens for their affordability, and Stilman and Birn for their durability. And, while my goal in keeping a sketchbook originally was to work on my art practice exclusively separate from journaling, I've been wanting to add words to the sketchbooks. But, like you said, any piece of paper can be there for you at any time, for whatever you need!
This is exactly the stuff I love. So, I have a journal that I mostly use to sort through my thoughts or write down noteworthy stuff. Sometimes I roughly sketch out something that resonated recently. I’m not always consistent with it and keep telling myself that I’ll get more consistent and that’ll last for a month max, lol. Them I have my notebook that I use as a planner. This is the first year I have my calendar digitally but I can’t fully skip paper entirely and bought a blank notebook that I made into a scrapbook/ bullet journal/ tracker / monthly and weekly planner. Every month gets a collage as cover and I have lists to track the books I read, movies I watch, write down books I want to read and movies and shows I want to watch. It’s so fun to use. My therapist also told me,e to keep a dream diary and that’s a tiny notebook next to my bed filled with bullet points and my weirdest dreams. Last but not least I recently started a common place book for random learnings to have them all in one place. Oh, and I have now two notebooks with notes from all my workshops regarding my work, so I can always look things up again!