Are you careful? Do you enjoy drawing within the lines and hate getting messy?
If so, you’re missing out when you apply these rules of life to your art notebooks. Don’t believe me? Just look at my two drawing pads and you’ll begin to see the difference that using the full space brings.
Following the Rules
This notebook follows all of the rules, and its clean edges show that. If you look close, you can see signs of life. A trace of red here, a pencil mark there. It also becomes obvious which pages have been used and which haven’t, as the thumbed-through pages are slightly duller than the fresh, unused ones.
Inside this fresher art notebook you’ll find some beauties. Just look at this acorn! I also have quite a few pages dedicated to using a synthetic brush pen, trying to hua-hua-hua out my name in Chinese. These pieces don’t need to go all the way to the edge. Who, after all, but a small student, will ham-fistedly clutch their pencil and write out to the edge of a line in a notebook? But, the side view leaves a lot of this era of my life hidden and mysterious until the pages are opened.
A Colorful Execution
The other notebook, on the other hand, has an extremely colorful side. From the top, you can see blues and greens (likely from skies and treetops) that have gone to the upper edge and struck 10, maybe 20 pages deep across the top of the notebook. It’s an effect that sounds messy, ugly, and possibly revealing of poor motor skills, but actually looks quite gorgeous.
From the side you can see eras of darker reds and oranges, and lighter colors too. It helps that during some periods I was heavily using KingArt color sticks, of course, as they will smear up the edges. Yet, in any event, there will be bands of colors and different media forming strata across the side edge of the art journal, giving fun insights into certain eras and experiments that the notebook experienced. It’s not totally dissimilar to what an archaeologist might glean from looking at a rock face.
The images inside aren’t necessarily better, as you can tell from this clown farmer guy. But they are often full (I do have smaller ones that don’t stretch to every edge, of course!) and lively and I never feel like I’ve “wasted” a touched page.
There’s so much emphasis on being neat and tidy, fearing messing up a future page, and worrying about keeping edges pristine, but so little on how good it can feel when you let the worries roll off of you.
Direct Comparison
At the end of the day, which notebook looks better to you? I’d go with the cork one, and not just because of its exterior qualities and superior cover. It looks more lived in, more fun, and I can immediately remember what’s inside just from seeing its exterior.