The 27 ideas for fearless ways to start a sketchbook opened possibilities for this sketchbook resistor. In response to this class I am setting-up spaces to support to my own creative ways.  While I have 4-5 sketchbooks in different sizes, and while I save projects, getting the right fit can be challenging. This 12 x 9, multimedia sketchbook is covered by  is an abstract I made using edges of a box insert, and leftover paint.  The watercolor smeared a bit, but no biggie. My space. My rules.

While some of the pages here show ideas for basic set-up, more is needed.  These pictures show unfinished and non-sequential spaces that call for return. As a retired writing teacher, I craved the kind of spatiality I find in writing, a way that's recursive and can be revisited, revised, reconsidered. 

What really grabbed me in this class were ways to make spaces and add pockets for reflection on my creative journey. Inside the front cover, I created just such a space and tucked in some scrap collages that were made from this and that but need marking and considerations such as design and unity. None are perfect, but each one is can be picked up during available moments, like if someone is watching TV and I have no interest.

Space to write and to add bits of spontaneous creativity drove me. Then I admired a student project  with colorful quotes written by hand, I thought about a documentary I recently viewed how I wish I had saved quotes from that. Maybe this kind of sketchbook could be constructed to serve. 

My favorite media is often anything that's left-over. No work of art is the page above. Still, I invites something. What? Not sure yet.

Along the lines of adding space-holders with little spaces on top for even smaller space-holders, I thought adding envelopes is a great idea. Room to hold in-progress small work along with ideas for where to go next. Yaay! 

Another necessity for me  was a path to quirky pages. For example, I saw some cute little painted houses I wanted to try, but the class was in Spanish. I made some anyway and didn't think mine were great, but a Halloween house now sits on a flap-holder and calls for more drawing AND writing.

The back cover is also a tucking-space for stuff to finish or to save and use later.

I understand the value and even discipline sketchbooks require, but at this time, I needed one to be very open-ended and not very prescriptive. So far, all is in-progress, awaiting next-steps. 

Thanks for  useful ideas and encouragement, Marley.  Indeed I found ways to conquer the fear of keeping a new sketchbook. 

Judy