Pen vs Pencil: A Philosophy And A Practice

At some point in my life, I started using pens to sketch. It kind of changed my life. It reminds me of that one quote by Omar Khayyám:

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

When I started sketching in pen, everything felt more permanent. It's not like I was erasing when I was using pencils, but now there was a freedom to every stroke. Once it was created, there was no going back. My creative mark on the world, however small, was made.

I started filling up sketchbook after sketchbook and really getting better at creating ideas. This extended to how I work online as well. The creations can now just flow.

And if I don't like what I created, I can just create another post tomorrow.

If you'd like to know what I'm sketching images for, please VISIT TRANSCENDENT PRESS.

- Mr Benja -

Why Do I Have So Many Sketchbooks? So Many Ideas.

I buy numerous sketchbooks for my ideas. They're not very professional either. I tear out pages, cut out ideas and paste sketches from other places in them. They're very functional for me.

1. Different sketchbooks with different topics. This allows me to concentrate on a focused set of ideas. When I pick up my human studies sketchbook, I know I'm going to be drawing people. It helps me focus also to see where I've been in the past. 
2. I don't short-circuit any ideas. If an idea goes into a sketchbook that works better somewhere else, I will clip it out and put it into another sketchbook.
3. With a pen and a ruler, each sketchbook is divided into sections (usually nine segments). This was a breakthrough. Now I can create segments that are discrete and framed outputs. I don't have this huge page of paper to waste space adding random thoughts to. Each frame has a little border around it that I can write in if need be. Nine ideas, and then I move on.
4. If a sketch is found to be distracting, I clip it out and put it in a more appropriate sketchbook or I send it to the trash
5. I use different drawing utensils. For some reason, I found that I get different output when I use different pens, pencils, markers or simply colors. If my ideas need a jolt, I simply switch my utensil for a few pages.
6. Over time, when I go back and look at my sketchbooks, I'm taken back to the mindset I had when I created those sketches.