Scanning Sketchbook Pages

So I can share them with you!

Hello!

I’m going to keep the writing brief (ish) on this post, because I don’t have much to say but I do have lots of pictures to share. Here’s one right off the bat, just because:

A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to buy a new scanner. A few things factored into this decision. I have an old scanner/printer hybrid that was given to me by a friend in 2020. It does an ok job at both of those things…but it was made painfully clear to me how low my bar is after a friend scanned something for me on their very good scanner. I realized I had been wrestling my scans into color-correct submission for waaay too long. I love painting and drawing traditionally, away from my computer, and I realized if I wanted to continue doing that, I was going to have to suck it up and get a scanner that could capture color and texture correctly.

If you’re curious, I bought a refurbished Epson Perfection V600. I spent a week hemming and hawing over which scanner to get. In the end, I just asked my friend about theirs, and they did all the hard work for me and sent me a link to the exact scanner I had borrowed. Bless them.

So, as a fun test, I scanned a number of pages from my sketchbooks. I keep a sketchbook at all times. This means I have quite a few filled ones stashed away, and I’ve been wanting to scan them for ages. My old scanner was not up to the task, but my new scanner did a great job. Without further ado, have some art:

sketchbook pages

Keeping a sketchbook is probably the number one most important thing that I do for my mental health. I understood this passively before, but it really settled in as was taking time to scan these pages.

They were filled with conversations with myself, inner debates, and emotional exorcisms. Many, many drawings of crafting projects I don’t have time to make, but need out of my head. Observations of the world, that not only enrich my imagination, but also help me see beauty in my reality. So many drawings of angry bird women and sad fish women, which I’m sure I could scrutinize…

All this to say, it’s really nice to have a little pocket dimension that is just for you to muck about in. It helps me practice many things, but one of the most important things it helps me learn about is myself. I highly recommend it.

I didn’t want to overwhelm this post with images, so I have more pages to look at on my website. I decided to dedicate a tab to my sketchbooks right here.

Do you keep a sketchbook? Or a journal? I would love to hear about it if so. If not, what do you like to do to let your mind stretch a bit? exercise, games….forest bathing?

Thanks for reading!

-Claire