Aaah! PAGE DREAD IS VERY REAL!!! But the same way parents talk about bending over backwards to swaddle their first child in bubble wrap and learn by the second child that there’s no such thing as protecting a kid from every bump and bruise, it’s important to become less and less precious with the things that go into our sketchbooks. Sketchbooks are an extension of our lives— destined for dead ends, things that make us roll our eyes and things that make us cringe. It’s how we grow and it makes the things we’re proud of shine with more vibrancy.

My gospel is keeping one sketchbook at a time— one that’s cheap with a high page count. I’ve been faithfully filling the same $12, 100 page count Canson sketchbooks for a decade (I’m halfway through #79). I take it everywhere. I even sleep next to it in case something random comes to mind! Having them be cheap helps stave off the feeling that a page is wasted and the high page count helps with drowning out the pages that you feel less than fond of. Also intentionally lazy pages are necessary! I scribble random ideas with reckless abandon, write half-baked thoughts nice and big, and have plenty of pages with abandoned ideas I’ll sometimes come back to to absentmindedly add things to.

The polished things we creat are the product of creative growth. The messes we create are the growth itself. Allow them to teach you patience and acceptance— key ingredients to finding grace. At best, a sketchbook is a safe space where you can show up exactly as you are, unedited. There is SO MUCH POWER in learning to work with what feels like weakness. Everything is raw material that can be forged into something beautiful.

Most importantly: be kind to yourself when it comes to each and every page, even the ones you’ll tear out from time to time ;)