Sketchbooks: our canvas, our workplace, our babies

[djracodex]

I'm 10 pages away from the end of my sketchbook and yall know what that means

- THE QUEST FOR THE NEW SKETCHBOOK! -
Hands-down one of the smallest, yet greatest pleasure for artists is the new sketchbook. Is there any greater euphoria than when you finally found the one with the right paper texture, the right binding, and the right holdy-together-strap? But this satisfactions comes with difficult decisions.

• Should you seek out the familiar? Like finding an old flame, and starting your love story fresh
  Dare you try something completely different? 'Spiral bound? Are you crazy?!' You initially think, 'Yeah...you might be' you reply to yourself
  What investment will you be putting into this new member of the family? Leather-bound Arabian thoroughbred at Barnes and Nobel? Or humble morning dove canvas?
  Or are you one of those artists with the portfolio that you just replace the pad of paper in?

My current sketchbook is a portfolio-type, and I have fallen in love with it. Though I have found a replacement pad of paper (which was also a process) sadly, the pressed cardboard covers have seen the light, and it needs to be laid to rest. I have not found anything out there like it, and I have gone crazy: I'm going to make my next sketchbook.

tl:dr - Anybody know anything about binding books? Particularly books that can be folded in half (like a 3-ring binder?)
Bonus - I want to hear your sketchbook stories. I like stories.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

I'm terrible about keeping sketchbooks. I have at least five of them, some are proper sketchbooks and others are just lined paper notebooks. Either way, I suppose I never sketched normally enough to just start at the beginning of a sketchbook and move through to the end. So throughout these various tomes are vast swaths of empty sheets punctuated by an occasional sketch from any year dating back to at least as late as 2006. Many are unfinished and about 95% of them are embarassingly poor quality, as I imagine many artists feel about their sketchbooks. I've tried to resign myself to just starting in one of them and moving through chronologically, but whenever I get to one of Those Horrible Pages, or even within the 3 page surrounding radius, I either skip or just pick up another sketchpad entirely.

As for binding books, I don't know much about actually doing real book binding, but I did some very very amateur projects back in high school. I built the spine of the book from strips of paper, stacking a bunch of the strips atop one another and stapling them down the center to create the back fold. Then I'd glue the pages of the completed comic onto the flaps, set it on a table with a few dictionaries on it overnight, and voila, bound book in the morning

[LibertyCabbage]

Oh, yeah, people have sketchbooks, don't they.

[RobboAKAscooby]

I have the same issues as Cuddly, skipping pages to get past the bad stuff, I don't think I've ever finished a sketchbook.

I tend towards sketch pads, have a few different ones depending on what type of work I'm doing, good pages (or passable to be honest) get stuck in the folder and bad pages go into the circular file.

[McDuffies]

I never really buy sketchbooks. I either but sheets of A4 paper, or use whatever scraps I find around or notebooks that I got as promotional material somewhere - there's a lot of that, I rarely need to actually buy a notebook. I buy them only because sometimes empty notebooks have that kind of appeal - you know, they put you in creative mood. but even then I use them for notes, not for actual sketching. Also when I finished uni, I was left with three years worth of supplies of one-sided notes so I was fixed for some time.
The amount of drawing and false starts and whatever that I do, I'd probably be burning through sketchbooks like crazy, maybe I'm not disciplined enough for them. Anyways I shove everything I draw into old binders, so now I have stack of those binders that I plan to go through one day and sort out what's worth keeping. Idunno, maybe one day someone will just get annoyed and throw the whole thing out. Or, you know, keep it for grandchildren, to see how their grandfather was wasting his time ("what is this? it looks like if someone drew on screen with a tablet, only somehow tangible...").

Like Cuddly, I too have some very amateur experience in binding books with whatever material I have laying around. They end up looking cruddy, specially since I don't have a knife for that sort of thing, but then I make them look even cruddier (like ripping paper instead of cutting it) and it turns out that people like them very much as presents.

[Cope]

I just buy primary school exercise books for my sketching, lined paper and all. They do double duty as drawing boards.

[Yeahduff]

SPIRAL ALL THE WAY.

[Yeahduff]

I actually do my entire comic output in sketchbooks. This isn't a common experience is it.

[Humbug]

Ever since going digital I haven't seriously used my sketchpad in years. Although now that I'm actually planning my comic in advance it's easier to just bring a sketchpad with me to doodle concepts rather than take up an entire table with my laptop and tablet.

[RobboAKAscooby]

Oh crap we're being too active, the spambots have returned

[Yeahduff]

That is the opposite of the problem.

[MariaAndMichelle]

I actually do my entire comic output in sketchbooks. This isn't a common experience is it.

Michelle used to do all the line art for our comic in her sketchbook (waaaay back, in the beginning), but it wasn't

SPIRAL ALL THE WAY.

so the binding crapped out, and she gave up on it. After that, it was all done on sheets of printer paper, until she got a tablet.



Nowadays, she doodles digitally mainly, but she does have a spiral-bound sketchbook for when she feels pencil-y.

[[geoduck]]

I do my strip entirely on the computer (finally using a tablet instead of a mouse..) but I have a sketchbook I sometimes doodle random ideas in.

[RobboAKAscooby]

That is the opposite of the problem.

Uh huh....

Was kind of being sarcastic.

[McDuffies]

Oh crap we're being too active, the spambots have returned

They've been there all the time, but only cool people could see them.

[djracodex]

I actually do my entire comic output in sketchbooks. This isn't a common experience is it.

All of my work ends up digital, but I find it easier to visualize the big picture (especially in comics) if it's right in front of me, so my lines are pretty much all in my sketchbook. I don't know why, but anytime I just want to sketch out an idea digitally it looks stiff and wonky. Bad.

Ever since going digital I haven't seriously used my sketchpad in years. Although now that I'm actually planning my comic in advance it's easier to just bring a sketchpad with me to doodle concepts rather than take up an entire table with my laptop and tablet.

I like to curl up and doodle sometimes. Laptop and tablet are not cuddly creatures, but sketchbook is!

It's been interesting reading everyone's different methods. I remember everyone having a sketchbook back when I was in school, and those bastards went through them like toilet paper! My friend was on book #33 a couple years ago; I'm on book #10 now, after 14+ years of drawing.

[Montyandwoolley]

I don't really use a sketchbook any more, since i draw everything on the Ipad i just tend to doodle ideas on that.. Not sure if I could go back to the days of no-undo function or no pinch-zoom. I guess that just makes me a lazy artist, no pressure to draw things correctly first time

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Oh crap we're being too active, the spambots have returned

They've been there all the time, but only cool people could see them.

who wants to be cool when you have to read spam posts all the time

amirite

[spoonyliger]

I used to draw on a sketchbook back in my scholarly days. Today, between the day job, the girlfriend, my comic book and video games I've really got no time for sketchbooks.

[Yeahduff]

That is the opposite of the problem.

Uh huh....

Was kind of being sarcastic.

Apologies. I've heard that expressed sincerely in these parts.

Kinda surprised to hear so many people ditch paper. Even if I had the means for a tablet I doubt I'd ever stopping using pencils and ink, but my process has always been minimal on digital postproduction.