So, who doesn’t love a good sketchbook? Maybe it’s just me? Nah. It seems I’m on my forever quest for the perfect sketchbook. The ideal size, the ideal paper, the sketchbook that can do it all. This idea of the sketchbook of perfection is like the holy grail. Maybe this is why I have bought so many. And many are little tiny ones, so I can check it out and see if I like it before spending the big bucks on the big A3, or (gasp), the A2. Of course, we can never have too many to try out as the mood hits. It’s like doing a tasting in the restaurant business. I know it’s not just me, because there’s a whole group on the topic from another Artist, The Frugal Crafter, who has a ‘Sketchbook Floozy’ group. That must justify it. It’s not just me.
I recently finished up 2 sketchbooks that I started last summer, have two still in progress, and just started another. I also finished one up last summer that I had started back in college and came back to occasionally wandered back to (don’t ask how long ago that was!). I have two others in the pleather, zipped binder that was my retired Day-Planner which I couldn’t part with when I moved on to newer, sleeker, not beat up planner for my Day-Planning needs. I repurposed it into a, well, a sketchbook binder! It can hold supplies too. Because you never can have too many plein air gear and things, right? Who’s with me? I have the purse sized sketchbook that I always forget to bring, I have the midsized trio for whatever I think my media will be, and various other ones I mean to start. Often it comes down to waiting for paint to dry, so I use one with the wrong paper for the media, because I am a suffering artist who can make anything work, almost like MacGyver. Almost…
I really like to customize covers, so that is a whole other category of sketchbook stories. It could also be seen as a procrastination tactic, painting covers and waiting for paint to dry, again. This comes back to the repurposing of the retired Day-Planner.
The lime green planner in the above picture is also repurposed. I bought it several years ago from a bookstore and it has such a great cover with embossing in the leather, a snap closure and a cute ribbon to boot. I didn’t open it for years (see above information on my issues with buying the many sketchbooks). Last fall, I was thinking to myself, “hey, I think you need to start another sketchbook, since surely three cannot be enough for you’”. I opened this gem and was dismayed to find it was pretty thin paper and it was…..lined! What? I bought a journal by mistake. It took all of two minutes to decide, hey, what if I gesso all the pages? This will thicken them and cover up the lines. It can be my mixed media book! And, with the awesome lime green cover!
I discovered during the process of customizing the paper of this now sketchbook, that gesso takes 10 years to dry! Well, hours anyway. I had to give it two coats and to do a few at a time, I used other art supplies to prop up the wet pages. I got bored about a quarter of the way through, so I started from the back of the book because this would surely make it seem faster. In retrospect, because I’m sure you were wondering, it was and still is tedious, messy, and time consuming. So I now have many awesome ideas worked out in many mediums, and of course the duds that are par for the course. The middle third of the book is not gessoed. I figure I’ll get the first and last thirds done before revisiting. Between us, have I ever mentioned that patience is NOT one of my virtues? I bounce between not being patient and procrastinating. It makes it interesting, just ask my spouse.
Well I am going to try and organize my sketchbook shelf, and get some stuff going and wait for paint to dry. I will begin video recordings soon for my YouTube channel that I’m in the process of starting up, as well as my free Patreon, and I will have some videos on Substack too!
Until next time, ciao! ~Elizabeth
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