I have a lot of sketchbooks. Every time I go travelling I pick up a couple, normally in something that’s local and hard to get or more expensive in Australia (my luggage was 20% stationery by weight on my way back from our Italy honeymoon and from both Japan trips). It’s rare that I walk out of an art supply store without a new sketchbook in hand. (I go art shopping twice a year, max, that’s why I’m not buried in sketchbooks yet)

I store the empty ones in a drawer and active books in the cupboard shelf. So… what do I draw in day to day, with all these nice books at my fingertips?

Aldi sells ring bound 120 page sketchbooks for $3.69 under their Scholar label. I buy half a dozen when the back to school special buys come in January. The paper isn’t top quality and there’s no way it’s archival, but for that price it’s a sketchbook I feel like I can beat up, draw badly, write notes in, and play around with.

But, I still kept buying nice books that I’d hesitate to use. I’ve also been trying to strike the balance between “nice” and “affordable” - being Australian complicates it further with most of the online recommendations being from the USA. Plenty of people online recommend the Strathmore Series 400 softcover visual journal as an affordable everyday sketchbook - the cheapest I could find, at July 2024, is $53.15 - full price $75.95 (!!!!). I love the strathmore mixed media paper but those are Arches paper prices, not everyday sketchbook prices.

I want consistency that’s somewhat affordable, with reasonable quality. The Aldi ones feel a little mushy and the ring binding fades as you have it in a bag and the pages rub together. If a book is too expensive, I don’t use it. What if I ruin it. Blah blah blah. It’s an investment but not totally out of reach for something I’d buy two or three of a year - $75 is a nice brunch for two, or two thirds of my weekly groceries. Bit much for a sketchbook when my usuals are less than $5, though. I liked what people were doing with the lay flat books online, and I do most of my drawing at home these days unless I’m off travelling somewhere, so there’s no need for a ring bound book.

I had an art teacher who made her own sketchbooks in high school, and they laid flat, so I tried making my own in May this year. If I made it myself, I reasoned, I know that I can make another one if I run out. It’d let me try a bunch of nice paper, too - you can get good pads of paper in A3 cheaper than in a bound journal, so I can strike the balance of quality and price. Surely it can't be too hard?

Anyway I’m hooked. They're not pretty, but I made them!

My name is on the back of the left one so covered that with my brush rest! I like having the paper details on the back.

I’ve used paper pads I got from my office supply store as a test, and I used this youtube tutorial for making a sketchbook out of a drawing pad in coptic stitch. I don’t think I’ll go back to commercial books unless I need a ring bound one for some reason, but I’d like to learn a binding method I can fold back later on. I can make a book with watercolour paper, or drawing paper, or copic blending card… the possibilities are endless and it feels good to know I can make a book for every purpose. I collage the covers because it’s silly and fun. These sketchbooks are much easier to use guilt-free because I made them and know I can easily make another if I "ruin" it.

hi everyone! it's been a while since i posted last. sorry about the lengthy delays, but i'm going to try to get at least two of these blog posts/studio updates/journals out every month from now on. i want to take you through how the writing is going, any other projects i'm working on, and maybe talk a little about my studio practice (if anyone wants to hear about that?). let me know what you'd like to hear about!

now, last time i said i was ready to start radio lunarn. i was wrong. wrong.com.au.gov.org.edu. i am not ready! but i am writing!!! despite everything!

i'm dramatically shifting my narrative focus (again), but the core world concept and vibe haven't changed since i last shared it. now it looks less like the wire and moving into scandi noir territory. basically it got really overcomplicated and writing was very frustrating because i had so many disparate ideas that just wouldn't congeal. there's still a healthy dose of sci-fantasy with paranormal elements, and the setting is still the same with a soviet space colony. i might do a worldbuilding post a little later - it might help me organise my thoughts as well. if you're reading this, tell me: did you want to hear about the world or the characters first?

hi everyone. if you followed this link from tapas, thank you! very few people do this so i think you're pretty special.

a little on my next project. it's called "radio lunarn".

this is older than love and war - i made love and war because i wanted a "practice comic" before i started the real deal. i'm glad i did but i'm ready to start radio lunarn.

everyone has a story they started when they were literally 14 and is still with them in some form, and this is mine - it's a paranormal cold war crime drama, set in a future where the ussr won the cold war and established a space colony on europa before the nuclear apocalypse on earth. there are no straight characters. there is no endorsement of capitalism. there will be intense violence, sex scenes, and communism. it will be made with traditional pencils, inks, and watercolours. i might do the letters traditionally and only stitch the final product together digitally - i have to work it out. i'm so, so excited to bite off way more than i can chew with this one.

here's how you can join my mailing list to get emailed when i launch my next project. i won't contact you until there's shit to look at, but you can check back here on my site for bog posts when i work out what i'm doing with all... this web space, you know? this is a hubspot link and i've used it to manage the mailing list until i can work out something better.

you can also keep up with me with an rss feed, if you don't know what that is, i can feel myself crumbling literally into dust. i use feedbro with firefox, but here's an article on it if you want a way to keep up with lots of independent websites or webcomics without having to rely on a crappy platform like tapas or twitter or whatever to notify you when someone updates. i'm here in the year 2023 trying to learn css to put together a website that i pay for domain and hosting, so i think you can guess how i feel about platforms in relation to independent art. (if it's unclear, my stance is fuck 'em - you create value for them and the owners get rich from them. if it's a free service, you're the product)

anyway, i'd love to have you along while i work on my next thing.

hello!

testing out the blog function on comicctrl. more blog posts to come possibly on a similar timeline to comics: when i work out what i'm doing. i'll post my thoughts on comic making and the process here too, because that sounds like fun.

i can maybe upload with images??? whole new horizons of unhinged gibbering.

no comments yet. i haven't enabled them because i am not accepting critique at this time and also haven't worked out how