Sketchbook Journal

I sketch because I enjoy doing it, but I also draw because it helps my memory.  Sometimes the past feels like a blur.  When my kids were infants, I bought them each a baseball glove.  Now they are playing little league, and I wonder where the time went.

So at the beginning of this year, to offset the risk of fleeting memories, I started a sketchbook journal.  It’s like my other sketchbooks, where I draw different subjects, but this sketchbook is chronological, and is meant to preserve specific events in my life.  It’s not a diary, as I don’t mind if people flip through it.  It’s just an illustrated record of memorable moments.

Most of my sketches are of good memories.  I haven’t sketched my boys fighting with each other, and I didn’t sketch the crack in my windshield that I noticed this morning.  Maybe eventually I will capture the bad with the good, but for now, I’m drawing what I want to remember.

Included in this post is a sketch of the back of an airplane seat.  I can’t say that moment made me particularly happy, but I have been traveling a lot this year, and I thought that a scene from one of my flights was appropriate to include.

I don’t know how many more of these sketches I will share on The Hipping Post, but I figured you might like to see some examples of my other experiment in sketching and writing.

P.S. To see more examples of unique sketchbook journals, check out Danny Gregory’s An Illustrated Life.  It’s fantastic.