Q&A with Wes Douglas Marker Paper
I am a big fan of paper that is bound together by some means, whether it be a glued paper pad or wire-o method. I have even resorted to a clipboard for loose-leaf paper but that is usually short-lived and I end up binding it somehow, even if I have to temporarily use a stapler. What are the advantages and disadvantages for these three styles of paper forms? For on-location, or urban sketching, there is a nice feeling to know that your book is a record of what you have observed or how you reacted to something that you saw. I once read a great quote that explains why I like to draw and why it is important to keep all of my drawings together in a book:
“To draw something is to own it. You take home a sheet of paper with an image filtered through you, and you have an intense experience of the subject that can’t be taken away.” I know a few artists who like to draw on both sides of every page so that the sketchbook reads like a visual journal. One artist calls this “visual literacy.” Great term. Spiral bound sketchbooks are especially useful to me because I like to keep my drawing pen or pencil with the sketchbook at all times. If I cannot clip the pen to the sketchbook, sometimes I will put the sketchpad inside of a notebook binder because there is a loop to hold the pen. I tend to be a bit of a “pen snob” which means that I look for a certain level of flow from the pen that I use and my biggest fear is that a pen will run dry halfway through my sketch or note taking. Because of this, I now have developed a bad habit of having spare pens available so that I never have to stress out about pens dying on me mid-sketch.