Red Tailed Hawk Feather by Lori Corbett

Ooooohhhhhh, I found a treasure trove today! Sketchbooks. Some containing only one or two sketches, others with words and doodles, and some pristine. I can’t help but wonder, “Why would I buy yet another sketchbook, when I haven’t even filled the previous ones up?” Yes, they are different sizes and of different qualities, but still…why?

Then there are the notebooks. These are filled with ideas, observations, instructions. A few contain my handwritten notes for past articles – handwritten because I work better that way. The physical act of writing makes me slow down and think. My mind must slow to the speed of my hands, giving me time to find the perfect words to describe what I’m doing. These notebooks are filled with writing, scribbling out, arrows rearranging paragraphs – an attempt to organize the chaos of creating. All of this done, then typed into a machine, filed into their special folders, and not-quite-forgotten. They’ve served their purpose, but still they remain – handwritten and typewritten.

Reminders of what was.

I will keep these.

The sketchbooks. Each page a treasure, or a failure, or a thing begun, but not finished. I’ve copied some pages to share here. Experiments between projects and articles – back when I was driven to fill my time with making something, anything. These are some experiments with combining media: pen-and-ink & colored pencil. They are feathers, of course. Each painstakingly rendered and the entire process written – the steps, the colors, and notes on what worked or didn’t. Drawing just to draw. Another is a study board I created to figure out the process and colors and steps for painting the bald eagle illustration for “The Illustrated Bald Eagle” by Denny Rogers. This I found carelessly stowed away amongst papers and catalogs.

All of these reminded me of what I forgot I knew.

I will keep these, too.