Journaling: Idea Capturing

If your a creative type or an “idea” person you have lots of ideas and thoughts from visualization to observations. They are often glimpses or sparks that come unannounced. Often we are too busy or distracted to jot them down or able to explore them fully in the moment. In Dream Journaling we talked about the importance of jotting down your dreams as soon as we wake up lest we forget them. Productivity killers, especially creativity killers are the distractions and stress we face each day. So preserving the idea in it’s raw and purest form promptly, without distraction or dilution would be ideal. The voice recorder on your phone, an app like EverNote, post it note or a journal - whatever works for you! Interestingly, I was reading this article on using hand drawn sketches to design a web page. What struck me was here is a person with all the technological tools and code available to them still finds hand drawing to be most useful in jumpstarting the process. The results are in, and technology definitely enhances creativity. There are truly amazing software and hardware tools available these days such as Adobe CS, Toon Boom Animate, Sketchup and zillions more which we will get to reviewing and recommending. While computer aided design and video are booming creative mediums, drawing remains the foundation for almost all art production. Most artists and engineers still draw or sketch to capture ideas, for close studies and plan their further finished works, whether it is a web page, a structure, a PCB board, a car, plane, painting or a sculpture. Take architecture for example: today nearly all architectural blueprints are computer aided. However, the first idea, the shape, the basic proportion and exterior features were all likely initiated by a simple sketch. All of Frank Gehry’s amazing structures started with a sketch. When we talk about “sketching”, we refer to any outline for an idea weather in text or illustration. Leonardo da Vinci filled hundreds of sketch pads with illustrations and ideas, technological as well as artistic, and he advocated that all artists follow the same practice, in part so that they would have material to refer back to as needed, and in part to train the eye and hand in the acts of observation and recording. Leonardo is perhaps the greatest journal-junkie of all time. When I scroll through his works, I am seeing deep into his process. For such an amazing painter, his sketches are often very basic a raw - giving me hope and inspiration. As a young a young child and throughout his life, Picasso filled notebook after notebook with sketches and ideas, all dated, so we can follow the course of his development as an artist. Stephen King wrote Dreamcatcher in longhand. J. K. Rowling penned The Tales of Beedle the Bard by hand. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Kafka and countless many writers have hand written manuscripts despite having access to a typewriter. Why? People are different. Some are more visual, some more comfortable with a keyboard, some more comfortable with a pencil or brush between their fingers. It’s your expression and you get to select the medium and tools that feel most natural to you. About 20% of the population has discovered journaling as the most raw, authentic, comfortable, simple, least distracting and most instantaneous form of idea capture. When we ask people why they journal their answers are often underwhelming yet still insightful. They say, “Oh it’s convenient. What can be less complicated and less distracting than pencil and paper?” When you think about it, a journal is the ultimate mobile device for creative output; go anywhere, comfortable to use in many positions, no batteries or power required, no advertising pop-ups, no software required, all for a low low price. This isn’t an either/or scenario. No matter what your next step is, or format, or creative medium is; digital, paint, clay, metal - journaling and sketching will capture and hasten the process and record the journey from the nearest point of inception. Peoples opinions may vary on what is the most “authentic” form of creative expression. However, we can all agree that getting the first draft down promptly and having notes and sketches chronicling the process of your work will provide a provenance and authenticate your work as your own and maybe one day prove to be an important part of your legacy. I think of my journal as a big net where I capture as many ideas as I can then go back and cherry pick for further development. I try not to edit too much but rather, keep the original sketch and start a new one. That said, I sure do go through erasers pretty quick.