On keeping sketchbooks
attainablefelicity.mattkirkland.com
On keeping sketchbooks
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#2I always started these but always stopped. Instead, there are a bunch of A4 sheets lying around that I've been using over the years!
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#3Posts like these make me wish I could be consistant and keep a single notebook until its done and then move to the next. I always end up starting a project or scibbling down a thought on random scraps of paper. I try to organize and consolidate but really there is not much point after the fact since, if the note is made, transfering it is just busywork.
I leaned into it last couple of years, I have a 2 corkboards (a bit larger than A4 sized) on the back wall of my desk and I actually mounted a stationary clamp under one to have blank papers (A6) handy. It works pretty well until I fill them and move on to another notebook scrap paper etc.
I wish I could stick to a notebook and have everything from each time period but I have too hectic thought process I think. Maybe I could somehow combine them...
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#4Have you thought about digitalizing them?
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#5I always started these but always stopped. Instead, there are a bunch of A4 sheets lying around that I've been using over the years!
I prefer taking notes one-sided on loose sheets; unlike a bound notebook, you can freely insert, remove, and re-arrange pages. Taken directly from the zettelkasten concept, I date each sheet for a unique identifier, and then notes in a series are numbered hierarchically, so that, for example, a page inserted between those numbered #1.1 and #1.2 would get the number #1.1.1 ; for storage, I staple or clip my stacks and stash them in a hanging file.
For writing on the go, steno pads integrate well into this system; when I fill up a pad, I (eventually) unbind it and re-file the pages as if they were loose sheets.
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#6I feel like hand written notes are great for people who are artistic.. I would love to take hand written notes, and be able to connect dots with lines on a page, draw diagrams, doodle etc, but I'm just so not creative enough.
I need structure. I need my lines to be perfectly aligned and spaced, I want to be able to search for things that I would have written down, because I don't remember which notebook its in. I admire people who can/do take hand written notes. For me, I need a computer (or phone) to take notes in, digitally
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#7I throw all my sketchbooks. I don’t have a lot of space but whatever I do like, I cut them up and keep them in a “Big A3 Book” (some terrible quality paper I bought form ASDA i refuse to touch cause it upset me)
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#8I've been doing more or less this with a small pocket size notebook since October. I admit that I initially fell for the romance of the idea and made an impulse purchase, but started to use them a couple of weeks after I bought them.
I tried different formats and pre-planning and have basically made peace with my reality, that I don't know what I'll be doing in it on any given day. So I operate like a log, whatever is next comes next. Sequentially. But I'll also jump to a page, or two-page spread, for notes on a particular project.
Here's what I use:
Moleskine Cahier Journal, Soft Cover, Pocket (3.5" x 5.5") Dotted, Black, 64 Pages (Set of 3) https://a.co/d/9jXRxNt
I also use a 4 color flexion erasable pen, but I can't recommend that since you're liable to lose all your notes if you leave it in a hot car. Not so bad though, it comes back if you stick it in the freezer. No joke.
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#9I feel like hand written notes are great for people who are artistic.. I would love to take hand written notes, and be able to connect dots with lines on a page, draw diagrams, doodle etc, but I'm just so not creative enough. I need structure. I need my lines to be perfectly aligned and spaced, I want to be able to search for things that I would have written down, because I don't remember which notebook its in. I adm…
Yeah, it's just such a cool image, the person with the notebook at the meeting, he's probably doing something cool, with the same media that a lot of my favorite works of art and technical things probably started on.
He's got his job figured out so well it makes sense to have dedicated accessories and actually carry them around. He's a master of his tools, he must be really passionate about what he's doing(Or else he'd be staring at a screen). He's really made it.
But the actual experience... feels like work. And creates physical artifacts, which is then even more work, and phones are so highly addictive it really feels like work by comparision. Then if I go back and read them, I can't, unless I was carefully paying attention to each individual letter as I write it.
Not exactly something you can just pick up, it takes lots of experience to be able to write without being so distracted by trying to get your hand to make the letters that you stop paying attention...
Really the only time I ever write on paper these days is tabletop RPGs, a few checklists for very high profile projects worth having both digital and analog versions of, and a play I volunteered for where real paper made the most sense for tracking cues on lines of the script.
Re: On keeping sketchbooks
#10Nice post! I've always kept a journal since using laboratory notebooks (and learning how to organise them) at uni. Over the decades I've settled on taking a notebook and running a bullet journal from the front page, in, and an "autofocus" to-do list from the back page, in. This year I'm hosting it inside a day-to-a-page Moleskine diary because I never really spill over one page for my daily log and I was going through three journals a year which incurs three-times setup overhead.