Tag: composition notebook

  • Compbook Scrapbook

    One thing I love about the composition notebook is its casualness. It’s different than a sketch book. There is something about the lined paper that already lets me know this isn’t that critical. And when I use it for both drawing and writing, it feels not like a thing, but more like a place I can ride around, like a roller rink. If I stay in motion, I get somewhere

    It’s easy for me to paint and draw and write on compbook paper or old file folders like it’s easy to sing when I’m alone in the car. It’s a bare-handed way to catch and re-conjure so many different parts of the day. I like seeing what will show up on its when I have my compbook open and hands in motion. I know that writing and drawing at the same time is never a bad idea. And I know that making things without knowing what they are or are for is also never a bad idea.

    The images below made their way into the world somehow.

  • Round Robin Juxtaposition: Giving a Body to Worries, Wishes and Needs

    This is an exercise that begins with writing for five minutes in your composition notebook about the things that concern you: things you have to do, things you’re worried about, things you wish were different. The next step is to fold a piece of copier paper into quarters and divide the spaces by running your flair pen down the fold lines. Set a timer and draw any animal in 90 seconds. If you are doing this exercise with others, pass your paper and then draw another animal in the next box. Repeat this until all four spaces contain a drawing of an animal.

    Pass the paper again and look at the piece you wrote in your compbook. Find a worry, wish or need and write it in a speech balloon as if the animal is saying it. Pass the paper and repeat. In my classroom this results in a page that eight different people have contributed to.

    What happens when we give a body to a concern? This is one of the things comics can do.