On finishing a sketchbook
I recently finished a sketchbook, and by "finished," I mean every page has something on it. It's a big deal to me because I'd never finished one before. I've bought tons of them over the years, but the allure of a fresh sketchbook that would somehow work better, be a better size, or feel better once I had a better plan always trumped the persistence required to focus on just one. This one took me four years.
This sketchbook is a hardcover Moleskine, about 8.5 by 11 inches, which I'd been quietly using as an excuse for years. Too big to bring to a coffee shop. Too big for a backpack. Too big to be the kind of sketchbook I thought I was supposed to have.
I bought it in 2021 in Oakland on a day my sister and I were hanging out. We went to the art store together, picked out new sketchbooks, and brought them on a hike at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve. The first few pages are from that day. I pasted in leaves I collected from the trail. I drew my sister sitting at a picnic table that overlooked the mountains, head down, drawing in her own sketchbook.
A good chunk of the book is from my Oakland years: drawings of my apartment, sketches from a trip to Lake Tahoe, and cacti from a trip to Palm Springs with my then-partner. There are also pages and pages of notes from books I was reading: The Artist's Way, Polysecure, Eight Dates, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, reflections from Sarah Blondin meditations and Brené Brown lectures. My friend Morgan Dyer and I had a Patreon podcast called Closer at the time, and there are whole spreads about themes we wanted to explore on upcoming episodes, like lists of words, half-formed questions, and things I wanted to remember about our conversations.
In 2022 I left Oakland and moved to Los Angeles, and the sketchbook came with me. The middle section of the sketchbook is the quietest stretch. I was figuring out a new city, a new apartment, a new everything. People always ask me what brought me to LA, and I always say "adventure." What that translates to is not having a reason to be here. I had no job here, no friends, and no family. I just thought it would be a good challenge and might provide me with art opportunities. I've also struggled to find where home is for me, and trying new cities felt like the right protocol for finding where I belong.
That being said, there are pages from that period planning my 2023 solo show Love We Share in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which included lists of potential painting titles, and words and phrases I was collecting that might end up in a painting or might not. The sketchbook had become a place where my work got staged before it became "work."
When I picked the sketchbook back up more regularly (around 2025), it was because of my partner. He and I had started a shared sketchbook practice together, and his consistency with that one inspired me to be more consistent with mine. I'd been working in this Moleskine for years by then, but meeting him is when it really came back to life.
The last stretch is the part I think about most. At some point I started keeping the sketchbook open on my studio table, and every time I switched colors while painting, I'd dry my brush off on whatever page was facing up. I wasn't trying to make anything. I was just clearing the brush. But the dried brushstrokes started forming patterns, and then words, and then whole compositions made entirely from leftover paint. I'd lean into the limitation of whatever color was already loaded and see what it wanted to do. I wasn't sure what I was doing. I didn't think these pages would become anything. I just liked the rhythm of it, and I liked that the sketchbook was finally something I reached for without thinking.
Those pages turned into a new body of work, which is basically just the sketchbook pages made larger, with more intentional color choices. This body of work started in the back of this Moleskine, accidentally, with a brush I was just trying to clean.
When I finally finished the last page, I felt a range of emotions at once. Mostly, I was happy. I'd been working toward this for four years! But I was also sad. I'd hit a real rhythm with the studio sketchbook practice, and now it was over. I had to buy a new one and start again. For a week or two, I didn't have a sketchbook on the table at all, and I noticed the absence every time I sat down to paint.
My new sketchbook is another Moleskine, but smaller, maybe 5 by 8. Easier to carry. Easier to bring to a coffee shop. The kind of sketchbook I always told myself I should have been using in the first place. I don't know yet what it'll become. Probably nothing like the last one. It's hard to picture from where I'm standing, but the old one is full now, and that feels like enough.
Kevin
