Simplify, Complicate: My Multi-Book Life

My many daily-use books. From left: Field Notes for memos, DIY journal/log book
(Rhodia notebook), DIY planner (Leuchtturm notebook), hand-stitched signature
for most of my sketches, red Field Notes for more sketches

Some things get simpler even as others get more complicated.

Years ago before I had started sketching, I saw the sketchbooks and art journals of Roz Stendahl, Cathy Johnson, Liz Steel and Danny Gregory (among many) and so admired the way they artfully integrated their words and sketches on the same page. I loved the idea of making a book containing the “story” of my daily life in both words and pictures. As a lifelong journal writer, I was used to filling pages with words, but making pictures on the same pages felt like stilted, self-conscious add-ons. I tried it off and on, but the practice never lasted. (It further convinced me – falsely– that I must be a “word person” and not a “visual person.”)

When my urban sketching habit finally took hold, I had no problem filling sketchbooks (even when one cost $160!) – I burned through page after page without hesitation. But whenever I tried to write and sketch on the same page, both the writing and the sketch felt tight, restricted, uncomfortable. If I could both write and sketch with ease, why was doing both on the same page so difficult?

A minor reason was incompatible papers. I don’t like writing on thick, toothy paper that I prefer for sketching. While I enjoy using a fountain pen to sketch with, I write much faster than I draw, and the slight drag of the nib on cold-press paper when I’m writing annoys me. I also don’t like using wet media on thin, smooth paper that I prefer for writing.

But the more significant reason is related to privacy: I want to share my sketches but I have no intention of sharing my journal writing. If I put a sketch online, I don’t want to have to digitally blur the writing surrounding an image. If someone asks to see a sketchbook, I want to be able to hand it over without hesitation. And most important, I don’t want either my writing or my drawing to be hindered by whatever else might be on the same page.

My DIY planner

Once I understood this, I accepted that my sketchbook would never be the words-and-sketches kind I admired of others – and that it was perfectly fine to have a separate book for each task. But that’s when things got complicated.

For the past several years, my planning and journal keeping processes have become more and more streamlined, and I’ve gotten them down to two A5-sized notebooks that I’ve DIY’d into a planner and a journal/log book. So at least my writing life has gotten simpler. (Oops, I forgot about my occasional travel journal. . . more on that later.)

My sketching life, however, has gone both ways. After experimenting with many sketchbook sizes, types and formats and using several simultaneously, the past three years I’ve been very happy binding my own in a single consistent format – apparently the only way to get everything I want. That simplified my primary sketchbook need beautifully. But I’ve also always had a secondary need – a smaller, catch-all sketchbooklet that I could pull out quickly and use with simple materials. After going through nearly every commercially produced pocket-size notebook, ranting about the crappy papers in them, I finally resorted to the same DIY solution: making my own.

Field Notes Workshop Companion: Just right for both sketches
and notes.

For a while I was happy with those – a large and a small sketchbook, both portable, both handmade. Then last summer I stumbled upon a surprise: Field Notes finally came out with an edition containing paper I could happily sketch on. I started using the Workshop Companion for small sketches as well as memos and other brief notes when I’m out and about; I was able to eliminate the small scratchpad I used to carry for brief notes. And I decided I liked the Workshop Companion well enough that I wouldn’t have to make my own sketchbooklets anymore.

Then a few months ago Field Notes surprised me again – with the Sweet Tooth edition’s booklet of red paper! You know from my recent sketches how much fun I’ve been having with those (I’ve filled three so far, and I’m on my fourth). I may eventually go back to white or lighter colored papers, but in the meantime, I’ve bumped up against another complication. Since the red paper is a little too dark to take notes on easily, I’ve had to start carrying an auxiliary notebook just for memos again. One step forward, two steps back.

Messy notes and sketches in my auxiliary Field Notes.

And then there’s still the occasional need for a travel journal, which is currently being met by a pocket-size Rhodia notebook. When I travel, I leave my planner and journal/log book at home, so the pocket Rhodia serves both those needs. It holds not only my written musings; it also contains reference information; glued-in ticket stubs and other ephemera; even some sketches. (Interestingly, my travel journal comes closest to the fully integrated words/collage/drawings book I’d always wanted – and what a beautiful mess it always ends up being!)

Just recently I started pondering whether I could use red or Workshop Companion Field Notes instead of the Rhodia. . . ? One Field Notes is certainly slimmer and easier to carry than the chunky Rhodia, but I’d need four of five of them to match the number of pages I typically fill in a Rhodia. Can I stand having all those separate books for one trip? (The one with reference info I need will inevitably be the one I happen to leave back at the hotel.)

My France travel journal filled with writing, sketches and
collage (pocket-size Rhodia notebook).

Some things get simpler even as others get more complicated. 

DIY Rhodia Sketchbooklet

My DIY sketchbooklet, this time filled with Rhodia paper.

As I was running out of my stock of DIY sketchbooklets, I started grumbling anew about why even one of the plethora of manufacturers making small, thin pocket-sized notebooks doesn’t offer one that contains blank, fountain pen-friendly paper that could be used for casual sketching as well as writing. A couple of months ago I renewed my search for such a notebook and ended up trying Baron Fig’s Apprentice. The paper is not ideal, but at least it’s blank, and I still have hope that the company’s attitude about responding to customers’ needs might eventually result in a notebook with better paper.

This week my whining ran out of steam, and I needed a daily-carry sketchbooklet, so I had to resort to my previous solution: DIY. This time, instead of filling it with 100-pound watercolor paper, I used Rhodia paper, which is thin enough that I can bind it into a notebook with 48 pages. (Although 100-pound watercolor paper is much better for sketching, I can bind only about 20 pages into a sketchbooklet because of its thickness.)

3/21/15 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Rhodia paper

Rhodia paper, which I first experienced last summer in my travel journal/sketchbook, is a joy to write and sketch on with a fountain pen. It even holds up to a very light waterbrush wash. The see-through problem, common to all the notebook papers I’ve tried, is still there, as would be expected for 21.3-pound, “high-grade vellum” paper. More notable, though, is that I saw no bleed-through at all, even on spots where I had washed the ink on the other side (see below). And I’m pleased about the number of pages I can bind into a small, thin notebook, giving me more bang for the handbinding buck.

An 80-sheet pad of No. 18 (8 ¼ by 11 ¾ inches) Rhodia paper costs about $10 - $12 on Amazon (a little less at the University Bookstore where I bought mine), so that means my notebook cost about 80 cents, including the 100-pound cover and waxed linen binding thread. It took about 20 minutes to make (not counting carving the gingko leaf block, which I made a while back).

Back side of Rhodia paper showing ghosting
but not bleed-through of washed fountain
pen ink.

If I could buy it, I would. But to get what I want, DIY seems to be my destiny.

Updated 9/5/15: The closest I have come to finding an ideal store-bought, daily-carry sketchbooklet is the Field Notes Workshop Companion edition. It's a limited edition, so if you want them, buy them before they disappear!

A Six-Month Follow-Up on My DIY Planner and Journal/Log

A freshly made planner on top of the used one.

It’s been nearly six months since I started using the planner and the journal/log book that I made myself from standard notebooks. (Click the links in the previous sentence to review my initial motivation for making them.) Although the impetus was sketchbook-inspired, the ways in which I use the books themselves are not related much to sketching, so I’ll indulge only briefly here to follow up on how they are working out for me.

In short, I love them! I enjoy using them every day. They suit my needs ideally – no compromises based on a manufacturer’s template.

The planner didn’t require much adjustment on my part – it’s the same two-page-per-week, A5-size format I’ve been using for the past few years. On each weekly spread, I keep appointments on the left and a to-do list on the right. Longer-term planning goes on a monthly grid calendar in the back of the book. (This used to be in a separate calendar previously; I really like now having the weekly planner and the monthly calendar in one book.)

Glued-in reference items.

A small section of blank pages falls between the weekly planner pages and the monthly calendars. I wasn’t sure how I’d use these pages – I had initially thought to write long-term goals or other notes – but I wanted anything I put there to be relevant only for the year so that I don’t have to keep referring to an old planner once the year is over. I ended up using the pages to glue in small paper items that tend to sit on my desk but are prone to getting lost, such as Gage’s drop-in life-drawing schedule (cut from their catalog), business cards and coupons. (I use Tombow Mono Removable Tape Glue on coupons so they can be taken out easily.)

Weekly log pages, filled and empty.

The journal/log book was a slight change in format in that the two are now combined into one A5-size book lasting six months (I used to keep my log in a pocket-size notebook, and the journal was a separate A5-size book). I like having more space for the log in the first 26 pages of the book – about an inch of vertical space across the page for each day. I record things I’ve sketched, seen, eaten, read, heard and otherwise experienced that day. It’s just a list – no commentary – as the latter goes into the remaining freeform pages of the book. If I wrote in the journal about something noted in the log, I put a page number in the log for easy reference (the pages of the Leuchtturm notebooks I use are prenumbered). It looks like I’ll probably have a few pages leftover in the volume at the end of the year, which is fine (better than running out of pages, which would raise my hackles!). I’ll start the new year with a fresh volume.

You’ll note that there’s nothing pretty about my planner, journal or log pages; I’m not into stickers or washi tape. My esthetic awareness in these mostly functional books is limited to using fountain pens. (But that’s probably where I go overboard: I currently have 14 fountain pens inked up with a rainbow of ink colors – and that’s not even counting the pens I sketch with!)

2015's planner and journal/log are
made from Leuchtturm notebooks with
a dot grid page format.

I used a rainy afternoon last month to make my 2015 planner and my journal/log for the first half of 2015. The only change I made was to use dot grid notebooks for both. I found the grid ruling in the Moleskine book I used for my planner to be a bit too dark and obtrusive. The log/journal I’m about to finish has blank pages, which is my preference for writing, but the DIY ruling goes a lot faster when I have the dots as guidelines. And the Leucchturm dot grid ruling is pale enough to be unobtrusive.

Is there anything more satisfying than starting the year with a fresh, blank journal and planner?

Maybe only ending the year with a fully used sketchbook.

Update: See my review at the Well-Appointed Desk about how I make my log now.

Journal page of a visit with
family in L.A. . . .

. . . testing a paper with various
pens. . .

. . . restaurant review.

DIY MOO Cards

My DIY Moo-like cards printed on my inkjet printer.

I first learned about Moo last year when bloggers preparing for the Urban Sketching Symposium in Barcelona were showing off the cards they had printed by the online company. Especially popular were the double-sided, 2.75-by-1.10-inch Moo MiniCards. I was tempted to do the same, but I never got around to it. Instead, I simply printed a stack of conventional-size business cards with my self-portrait, contact information and Urban Sketchers info (the same cards I hand out when I’m sketching and someone asks me about Urban Sketchers). They didn’t have sketches printed on them, so they weren’t as cool as MiniCards, but it was still fun to exchange them at the symposium.

This year I recently started seeing Moo cards again on blogs I read, and I felt tempted again. Why not order a stack of Moo MiniCards, too? I picked out several sketches that I thought would reproduce relatively well in a tiny format and started going through the Moo site. Then it struck me: Why don’t I print them myself the same way I print my usual cards?

Shown at lower right is the front of the cards (I have both portrait and landscape formats) printed with my Bitstrips-like self-portrait (done without the app, of course) and contact info. The backs are printed with several sketches that best represent my hometown and the kind of sketching I like to do. It took me only a few minutes to print them on my inkjet printer (although cutting them apart with my paper trimmer took quite a few more minutes). I used matte-finish card stock that I bought at Office Depot.

A friend (you know who you are) once affectionately called me “the Martha Stewart of urban sketching.” I wanted to deny it. But I guess I can’t.