I love visiting old sketchbooks, especially those that I carried around in college. I went to an arts college, so I was constantly in contact with other creatives and inspiration was everywhere. My sketchbooks were for drawing, class notes, project ideas, and creative writing. While I majored in interior design, I was exposed to all sorts of art techniques, textures, colors – all reflected in the pages as I played, experimented, layered.

I enjoy looking through them because it’s really nice to see how fearless I took to the pages. I wasn’t so afraid to make mistakes. If the sketch didn’t start out right, I erased it or started another. I was inaccurate and sloppy. Some were good, some were terrible. I wasn’t even picky about the sorts of writing instruments I used – ballpoint, fine point, marker – I used anything I had on hand.

Flipping through them makes me want to journal in a sketchbook again. For some reason, when a notebook is labeled sketchbook, I seem more open to doing art in it. It’s a freeing feeling. The possibilities of those blank pages beckon to be filled with images and mistakes. It’s the same feeling one gets when they start a new journal.