Pancakes Pages

I handed her one of my journals and a pencil...then brush pens, a Fude nib, and a suggestion: "Just doodle. Make pancakes."

"Pancakes?" she asked.

I explained that they're the entries you make to warm up when sketching, but I have come to enjoy them so much that I often make them my only activity in a sketching and painting session when winding down at the end of a long day.

"Don't worry about what it looks like," I said. "Just play. Get lost."

My mom opened a loaner sketchbook of mine and got to work. About 20 minutes later, I heard it: that beautiful deep sigh one lets out when one is truly lost in flow.

"I could get into this..." she said.

It was lovely.

Sometimes we become so fixated on the end result of a sketch that we forget about the process. As much as I love when a page turns out how I'd like, what's kept me coming back to sketching and painting on a daily basis has been the process...the making for the sheer fun of making. The scritch of the pen on paper, the gorgeous, colorful swashes of paint, the sigh that comes once I've gotten lost for a few minutes and the day begins to melt away.

Perhaps that's why a dedicated journal full of art messes might be just what you need to overcome any possible fears of the blank page. When you build a habit of starting without worry of "ruining" the page, you slowly begin to shed the impulse of feeling like the page is something you need to protect. The pressure dissolves. You're free to experiment, to fail, to play without judgment. A pancakes journal gives you permission to be messy, to make marks without meaning, and in doing so, it quietly teaches you that the blank page was never something to fear in the first place.

Below are some of my most recent pancakes. I debated sharing these because, as previously mentioned, they're not meant to be seen...but I also felt it important to show my work, if you will, and let you peek behind the scenes of this sacred little ritual. I hope that exposing my utterly silly, sloppy, rough, and random process might encourage you to do the same: to pick up your sketchbook, dive into it with the tool of the moment, get that head and heart onto the page, and work with your hands.

Do you have a special journal for pancakes? Notes to yourself? Little messy blobs, chicken scratches, and doodles? My pancakes journals are the only place where I go out of sequence. I'll flip through the pages, find a vacant corner, and scribble in something new next to a sketch I might have added two months prior. They're an utter mess. I throw most of them away. They're not meant to be shown. They're not meant to be anything but the vibe I'm feeling in that moment. They're my conduit of getting some of the substance of my head and my heart out through my hands.

Here's hoping you find some time to play and find that deep sigh within. Cheers, friends, and thanks for reading!