Starting a New Sketchbook

my new sketchbook!

Starting a new sketchbook always feels sort of ceremonial to me. A changing of the guard. A passing of the torch.

The old sketchbook is lovingly placed upon the shelf, its pages worn and full, its spine often cracked, the whole thing running over with ideas. It has served its time and purpose.

And then a new sketchbook is pulled, fresh from the pile I always seem to have on hand. Its cover is clean, its blank pages a siren song pulling me in. I know some people find this cleanness intimidating, and I certainly can relate, and yet even so I find it difficult to wait. All I want is to dive right in, to make the new space comfortable. To make it my own.

I still have this attachment to my old sketchbook, we spent so much time together after all, and I want this one to feel the same way as soon as possible. It will, in time. As I fill it with my thoughts and feelings, flip back through its pages, pause again and again for that one sketch that turned out just right. It will feel like home soon enough.

For now, the best I can do is decorate it for the job, marking it's honorable task as my tenth sketchbook. Guardian of my innermost feelings, collaborator on my work, and keeper of many random lists. They're important tasks, every one, and I'm entrusting this beautiful little book to handle all of them. Years later I'll be able to go back, flip through this book, and remember this period of my life so vividly because of the things it holds within its pages.

But for now we're strangers. We're just getting started, just getting to know one another. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

I wonder what we'll create together.