✍🏼 Practicing what I preach

When I was an art & design student in the early 1980s, I was introduced—some might say indoctrinated—into the world of sketchbooks. At the time, I treated them as an assignment, something to fill with quick drawings and class notes. I worked with the intensity expected of any new art student, but it took me years to find my groove and discover that a sketchbook is so much more than an academic exercise. It is, in fact, a place where self-expression can flourish. Over time, I became gentler and more compassionate toward my own creative attempts, recognizing that this little book was a doorway into tapping my inner resources—for work, creative practice, and personal growth.

🔎 Living Like Leonardo

Leonardo da Vinci famously carried notebooks wherever he went, capturing not just sketches but also stray thoughts, designs, and observations. He left a legacy of books in a quantity and quality that is hard to imagine reproducing in our modern times.

I am no Leonardo, but I have spent decades filling pages with doodles, random lines of text, and sudden bursts of insight. Early on, I felt the pressure to make every page “perfect,” which sometimes slowed me down or stalled me completely. However, once I gave myself permission to explore without judgment or expectation, these notebooks became a safe space to test ideas and listen to my own instincts.

My collection of old journals and sketchbooks is more than a stack of paper—it is a record of how my thinking has evolved. There are pages filled with scribbles that reflect moments of stress, and others with bright, confident outlines that seemed to leap from my pen. Today, I approach each blank page with a sense of curiosity and kindness, remembering that creativity flourishes when I nurture it without demanding immediate results.

Do you have a notebook practice? I’d love for you to take a look at mine; maybe you’ll be inspired to experiment and play on the page. ✍🏼