FOUR!
Okay, I know-- but you gotta hear out my reasoning! First of all, it has been a struggle to work a habit of drawing/creating into my life. The only real outlet I've had is this blog. But that's just messin' around. Well, I shouldn't degrade it THAT much, but-- I need something a bit more visceral and a bit more tactile.
While some parts of my life have really sprouted after college, I feel like my full potential has been weighed down by silly, interfering habits. Little things that I can't stop doing, and that add up to nothing at all and prevent me from becoming something better. This summer, I hope to unshackle some of these weights and replace them with better things. Like drawing.
So, back to the four journals.
The first is a Moleskine journal with graph paper inside. While people like to peg me as 100% right brained , I do love charts and graphs (okay, it's visual math, but whatever). There are all sorts of useful and useless pieces of information that I could track over 3 months and 4200 miles. Aside from hours, miles and elevation-- there are also things like how many lakes have been jumped in? How many tires gone flat? How much wildlife spotted? How many cookies consumed?
The second journal is panoramic at 5.5" x 8.25". While I am likely to take oodles and oodles of landscape photos along the way-- many will look inevitably flat, cliche, or just entirely miss the grandeur of the scene. This is just one reason why people still draw and paint. A human hand can selectively emphasize and exaggerate in order to share a very specific moment, idea or feeling. I want to sketch the Oregon coast on the first page and the Virginia coast on the last (and, of course, everything in between).
The third journal is square. I want to interview people I meet along the way. Having such a journal would encourage me to seek people out and prevent me from being too shy. I might even ask a common question or maybe just record people's responses to our journey, like, "You're crazy!" or "I'm jealous!"
The fourth journal is pocket-sized. If the first three journals are themed, I've got to have a place to put everything else! This is a place to draw my shoes, my bike, the cafe, whatever I please. It's the overflow.
And THAT is why I'm bringing four journals!
