Journaling
I am not the type to write recurring narrative about the daily activities of my life. At least not right now. Rather than a reflective diary, I keep an “everything journal,” in which I write work and class notes, drafts of my academic writing assignments, and ephemera like pencil test swatches, stamps and stickers, book and other reading responses and lists of things I want to explore or check out in the future.
For my “everything journal,” I prefer line-ruled A5-size notebooks. My favourite are the “travel notebook” style, small books of fewer than 100 pages that can be folded over to take less space, preferably thread-bound for durability and to avoid rust stains when the archeologists find it. I’ve found excellent examples of these from Fabriano (the Woodstock), Calepino (the Carnet A5), Clairfontaine (Flying Spirtit), and Rhodia (Rhodiarama), as well as numerous knockoffs from Amazon which are actually quite good. I prefer a more cream-coloured or off-white paper, which unfortunately is less common.
In addition to this format, I often reach for spiral-bound notebooks, as these more successfully fold-over and often offer a more plentiful selection. The most popular notebooks with the best quality paper, unfortunately, tend to be perfect-bound notebooks. I have tried many different kinds, but I find these challenging for the kind of writing I do, as they can rarely be used one-handed, or while writing on a clipboard or with no surface at all. They also are difficult to lay flat, which makes my handwriting quite poor. I’m not entirely sure why these types of notebooks are so popular or preferred by journalers.
In addition to the writing and ephemera journal, I keep an art journal. Contrary to my preference in writing notebooks, I actually prefer perfect- or hardcover-bound art journals. In my art paper I like a bright white, fairly toothy surface that can hold a lot of pigment, and a strong enough paper for my very heavy-handed technique. My favourites lately are made by Fabriano (the hardbound sketchbook) or Hans-Jordan (Permanent Sketchbook). Like my writing journals, I prefer the A5 size as it keeps my work small and limits the time I labour on any one project. My art is sort of “let the tools dictate the creation”-style, where I lay down some geometric shapes in light graphite, followed by a layer of coloured pencil (my current favourites are Cretacolor Artist Studio), followed by another layer of graphite or charcoal for contrasting monochromes. It’s a newish habit, and has been really helpful therapy for me in the past year between university stress and pandemic confinement. As I get new pencils and tools, that expands my repertoire and my only real goal as I draw is “use what you have and use it up.”
In contrast to all this, I also often make use of my large collection of school exercise books. I’ve landed a sizeable number from Rad and Hungry from all over the world, and also have a pretty big stash of local Hilroy cahiers. These are especially fun when I feel I will be doing a lot of writing and don’t need portable durability over a longer time span. Plus it’s fun to use foreign or vintage notebooks in front of my students.
Like pencils, I consistently buy notebooks and sketchbooks faster than I use them, so it’s become a bit of a hoard. I suppose like most stationery lovers I’m hopeful that one of these days, someday, I will have the time to use it all…
