I have so many sketchbooks. One for visual journaling, one for everyday sketching, a few for watercolor, a few for pastel, several from college classes, and a couple of spares that have little random sketches in them but are mostly blank.
And then there is The One.
My aunt and uncle came into my grandma’s living room one day after going on a trip out of state. My birthday had just passed, and they were carrying a neatly wrapped package. I was so excited as I tore off the paper.
There it was. The One that Started It All, the most awesome present any aspiring 12-year-old artist could have ever hoped to have gotten for her birthday! Black-spiral-bound, 85 pages, “leather” covers, with Winsor & Newton printed in gold lettering on the bottom of the back cover… just for me! It was the very first sketchbook I ever laid my hands on, and it was beautiful. My grandma took a purple gel pen off the table next to her and wrote my name and the date in the top corner of the inside of the front cover.
I took it everywhere: parks, restaurants, friend’s houses, and I wanted to draw EVERYTHING. People, plants, animals, objects, scenery, mythical creatures, characters… everything. I made it a mission to fill it, every page, and never take anything out. I would only use Ticonderoga pencils, always, because nothing could possibly compare to the amazing pencils I had received with this awesome new sketchbook!
I had never had an art mentor or any art classes, and for a kid with ADHD and a crazy life, a commitment like filling a sketchbook was an amazing personal accomplishment. Today, it sits on my bookshelf, almost 20 years old, the outside badgered and the edges worn, as a reminder of my beginnings and (as my grandparents put it) “what you can do when you put your mind to it!”