An exercise of class

This was done with an understanding why using a sketchbook was a better method for concept design. As I fleshed out these two ideas on paper, I was comparing the same process done using a computer or not done at all (as in, keepin' the concepts inside your head). The results, maybe not surprisingly, were numerous.

I keep a mechanical pencil (with no eraser, natch) stuffed down the ring bindings for my sketchbook. This quick, easy prep has enabled me to whip out my book, snatch my pencil from the binding, and get to sketching in mere seconds. This simply cannot be done without a dedicated computer used only for sketching. Think about it for a minute. What's the first thing you do when you get onto a computer? Get on the internet. One way or the other, you will be logged into some browser and putzing around the web. Are you just checking your email? Why would you do that? Because you're expecting something to be there! When I open up my sketchbook, I don't look for a message from my family or friends. I don't check the weather or the news or start shopping. I open it up to put my ideas onto something. I don't open it up to get information.

I can't draw very well. My hand and eye coordination has been developed in other areas. Using a sketchbook may seem counter-productive to someone who isn't naturally skilled in drawing, but I was wrong on that account, too. I can put my ideas down on paper fairly well now that I've sketched a mere 50-60 pages in my book. It's the placement of the elements and improving your idea into another medium (other than your head) that keeps me coming back to the sketchbook. I swear I came with 13 wildly different concepts in an hour or so the other day for a photog project and some of them were really neat. On an average day, 12 of those 13 ideas will be half way remembered once or twice more in my life before they are gone forever. Each time I'll think to myself how I should have wrote down the original idea because it seemed pretty interesting... It honestly feels good to get those ideas on paper and then move on to something else. Liberating for me, in a way.

I can't wait to go back through my old sketchbooks in a few years and just smile.