I just bought a new sketchbook, which is something I'll often do at the beginning of the year. Started drawing in it today and, already, 9 pages are filled. There's something wonderful about a new sketchbook. A brand new, sparkling white chance to do something fun and cool and satisfying.

This is the very first sketch in my new sketchbook. I have no idea who this woman is.

You know, I used to be deathly afraid of sketchbooks. For some reason, I'd gotten it into my noggin that one must achieve a certain degree of artistic skill or confidence to draw in them. In high school and college, I'd fill reams upon reams of spiral notebooks with doodles and drawings, always on the lined paper. Now, to be fair, they were usually the notebooks I was supposed to be taking notes in... but, the site of a real, live, blank sketchbook was just a bit too intimidating. And, God knows, I was terrified to lay down any lines on (gasp!) illustration board provided in high school art class. This was the big time! After all, who did I think I was, amateur teenage artist, with unrefined lines, vague notions of perspective and an awkward sense of anatomy!

But, my opinions have changed on the whole matter of sketchbooks. The more I draw, paint, and illustrate... the more awkward my sense of perspective and anatomy feels. I feel as if I've been producing art for a good long while now and I'm STILL not happy with my progress. But, man, at least I'm not afraid of sketchbooks anymore. It's really often that I'll be drawing in one of my books (my favorite kind are the hardcover book-bound ones with a nice, sturdy spine and cover. Forget about the spiral bound or tear-away pads... I go all out, baby... they're about 12 bucks or so at Borders or Barnes & Noble) and someone will take a look and say, "you know, that looks like fun. If I were better at drawing, I'd love to keep a sketchbook." To those dear folks, my advice is always the same:

Buy a sketchbook. Invest the 12 bucks on a nice sketchbook with a nice cover. Make sure it doesn't have the type of pages that you can tear out when you happen to draw something awful or, conversely, when you happen to draw something really good. If that first, blank page looks intimidating, make a deal with yourself... write the deal you're making with yourself on the first page, if need be. Here's the deal:

"This sketchbook is purely for fun.
None of the pages are special or sacred.
None of the drawings, sketches, doodles, and notes I make throughout are going to look good or even approach any type of professional caliber.
This will be, mostly, a very ugly book.
If some drawing or other happens to look great during this book's tenure, it's purely accidental.
If need be, I can write phone numbers or grocery lists or curse words or song lyrics on its pages.
If need be, I can draw puppies or demons or hearts or swirls or models or people or comic strips or portraits of Jesus or snapshots of sex acts.
I'm free to draw or write anything... it's my book, after all.
I can skip pages if I want.
I can also draw something the size of my fingernail on a page and move onto the next, if the whim strikes me, and I refuse to feel as if I've wasted a page.
I am not going to worry about whether or not I'm getting the most out of my twelve dollars at any point.
This book is my playground and my business and it's the one place in my world where it's not only okay to mess up, it's encouraged.
Some day, I may decide to produce beautiful drawings and paintings and other work, but it won't happen in this book.
I will not be ashamed of anything that goes on between its covers...

I WILL NOT BE ASHAMED OF ANYTHING THAT GOES ON BETWEEN ITS COVERS."

And, you know, there's something I like about every single sketchbook I've ever owned. However pretty, however ugly, it's a picture of my brain at some period of my life, more accurate than any photograph.