The purse notebook notebook is back, baby! Which means the pandemic, for me, is probably at its official end.
Until Covid, I always had some kind of a notebook with me. I also never left the house without some sort of a purse or a bag. I didn’t think that was optional. But like so many things, it turned out it entirely was!
During the pandemic, I didn’t use any kind of a bag or purse. (Phone, keys all fit in pockets, as would an extra mask.) I stopped thinking about sketchbook portability entirely because there was nowhere to “port.” And since I needed to be extra cautious, this went on for quite a while as we ticked through the Greek alphabet.
The notebook I’d take with me on outings also fit in a pocket. These outings were rare: it took three years to fill it. Prior to the pandemic, it would take about three months to fill a purse notebook, less than that if I was traveling a lot, which I often did.
But now I’m back to normal usage. I just finished one I started in May, which in its novelty made me reflective. So a few thoughts here, in case they are useful for you and your creative practice:
The purse notebook is different from what I consider my “regular” sketchbooks, which I sometimes have with me but not always.
It’s more like the reporter’s notebook I carried as a journalist. I am literally making notes, in the sense it was derived from, “to mark”. Very quick and dirty sketches, with descriptions of color (since I do not usually carry more than a pen and pencil.) Perhaps because of my writing background, I find it more useful to describe colors rather than to capture them on the fly. (I want to capture tonal differences, lights and darks, which can work for any color.) You may not know exactly what I mean by “lipstick red,” but I do!
I like to make a “real drawing” from my purse notebook sketches right away — ideally that night, but soon, while the image exists freshly in my mind’s eye. This is also similar to taking notes as a writer — fleshing them out as soon as possible always yields richer notes. These drawings are made in my “real” sketchbooks or art journals. Perhaps eventually to become paintings or embroideries or something else.
If that’s not possible, I’ll make extra notes in the purse sketchbook about what I saw to aid in the later drawing.
Here’s an example from my just-completed purse notebook, on the left, a moment in the delightfully named Big Rock Park, in New Brighton, PA. And a more developed drawing in my sketchbook made later.
Although I have often shown my sketchbooks and art journals, until this moment I have never considered showing anything from the purse sketchbook— mostly because unless I’m being meta like this, there is nothing for anyone but me to see. (I say mostly because occasionally I do make a nice drawing — if I’m stuck somewhere for a while or something. But it’s not the goal and it’s the exception.)
A related point. I’ve recently stopped taking photos of what I’m drawing in the purse sketchbook. At the moment realism isn’t very interesting to me, I’d rather rely on my sketches to make work.
Personally, I’ve found that drawings I make from photos I take are less interesting than those I make from observation. No judgement here — plenty of amazing work is based on photo reference. and I often use them in other circumstances. This is one of those tiresome debates in arty circles (to use photo reference or not) that rise to the level of moral conviction, and I am not taking a side because I’m on both.