I’ve mentioned the “pink camo book” on a number of occasions, and most of the time I think people assume it’s just some random name based on a brand or something. Actually, it’s far less interesting than that: the design – on both the cover and interior pages – is pink camouflage:

I originally purchased the thing at a Target in Yuma, Arizona, in early 2008. It was the only unlined notebook in the place, as far as I could find, and I’d decided that I wanted to do some art journaling during my 24-day sojourn in the Grand Canyon State. I didn’t end up doing very much drawing, just some doodles during the long overnight tests (I was there for work). I glued in assorted clippings from the places I visited, but otherwise didn’t do much with it – in fact, that trip only filled 9 pages, front and back.

Since the pink camo book was both cheap and ugly, I felt no compunction about turning it into an “anything” book: I drew it in while bored in the Artists Alley at AUSA or MAGFest; I used it during my brief time with dailydrawing; I used it for character designs for my unfinished graphic novel; I pasted in clippings from brochures whenever I visited somewhere, even just downtown DC. Many of my more recent pages have been of places visited while on snarfari. I now pack it for most trips and enjoy looking through it from time to time.

The concept of trash pages is essential to any art. If you don’t want to put down anything that’s not pristine, you’ll never get started. Everybody needs somewhere to practice. This is why I carry around beat-up old notebooks for writing, and why I have sketchbooks like the pink camo book. I am wary of gorgeous leather-bound journals – I don’t want to mess it up with my crappy doodling and stream-of-consciousness babbling, so it just stays blank forever. That’s not useful. Now if I can just convince myself that all my sketchbooks are actually just sketchbooks and not pre-bound portfolios, I’ll be in business.

What sort of “trash pages” do you use? Are they barely-started tunes in a folder on your computer? Stitches tried out with remainders? Or are you confident enough to use Moleskine notebooks or expensive yarn? Do trash pages apply to all creative pursuits?