Carry a Sketchbook

A partial array of sketchbooks filled over the years.

I’ve done it for years. It’s not just because I’m an inveterate sketcher and always needing to be doing something with my hands. Well, maybe that too. But my first sketchbooks were full of writing, not drawings . . . and they’re half that way now.

Carrying a sketchbook is a way to be traveling reflectively . . . whether or not you’re on a trip.

It’s so easy to do, and all the more for women who carry purses anyway. I just carry mine in my hand, or slip it my backside belt, or sometime a very small one in my pocket. I’m almost never without “something” to draw or write in.

Where, otherwise, does one put their thoughts when he has them?

Mornings, I start the day with the sketchbook near at hand. I make a few notes on whatever I’m thinking, have just thought, have just read. Sometimes they’re just ideas, sometimes mini-essays, sometime prayers, sometimes self-coaching. See last blog for an example of such.

Recently I met up with a friend with whom I used to work and had not seen for years. As I shared with him some sketchbook thoughts, he remarked, “Ah, the sketchbook; you have disciples.” He then named two people who use such sketchbooks, each now working in different parts of the world, both heads of organizations. Both, he told me, say they got it from me.

That’s not the point; rather that they’re using them for their thinking. Neither of them, by the way, are artists.

But of course I do also use mine for sketching. It’s a great diversion and can add interest to any moment. And since any art requires practice, drawing as I go helps.

And it helps keep the mind active. I can draw while I’m listening to a talk, sometimes taking notes in the margin. I can draw while I’m waiting. And drawing is another alphabet when trying to explain something.

There are additional benefits. When you take the time to draw something you look longer, you see it better, see it deeper, appreciate it more more. You’re training your own perception.

I suppose carrying a sketchbook gets part of the credit for my brag that I’ve not been bored in 50 years. (Unlike when I was a teenager, when I was bored most of the time.)

By now I have a shelf of sketchbooks. Now and then I’ll pull one down and look at it; but mostly it’s the one I’m in that has the most interest for me. When one is filled and I set it aside for a new one, I even feel a little sense of loss.

By the way, it was pulling from old sketchbooks that embellished the writing in my book, It’s About Life.

Speaking of books, I’m about to release another, sketches from Italy.

But none of that was why I brought up the matter here. Rather it’s to encourage you to pick up on this simple tool. As a friend told me once, “God can teach someone who’s taking notes.”

So, carry a book, take notes: Its another way to keep the mind alive.