Tiny Tuesday!

Because of something I wrote recently in the Neverending Saga, I repurposed another of the illustrations from my old 1981 calendar, coloring a kitten and a tiny chick hatching. Putting the page in my “coloring book” reminded me of an exchange in comments between Mark and me in which I talked about how Tom is always helping me figure out how to make ideas reality or find solutions for problems or projects I take to him.

It began with this oversized sketchbook I bought once at Ross. I don’t know why, because I don’t sketch. I’m not sure how artists use sketchbooks, but I assume after sketching, they tear out pages and do something with them (for example, I have a nephew who’s an artist, and sometimes he sketches when he’s in a restaurant or coffeehouse, and then gives the sketches to his servers, which I think is very cool).

Since I like to fill empty sketchbooks with my coloring pages, and many of my coloring books are oversized, I decided to use the large sketchbook for that purpose. I wanted it to have a more personalized cover, so I collaged it. The collage is full of things that reference memories, friendships, interests, and my fiction. Since the front cover of the sketchbook was of very thin card stock, I glued a sturdier sheet of cardboard on the inside front cover so the collage wouldn’t weigh it down and damage it.

I began to fill it up in 2022 and 2023 with the coloring I did. I used only the front pages, and when I came to the end of those in May of this year, I didn’t want to stop using the book. I still felt very attached to my collaged front cover. I decided to start at the end of the sketchbook and put new coloring pages on the back sides of every page until I got back to the beginning of the book. This is the last page in the book that I did when I was coloring up a storm–I mean, literally coloring pages during daylight hours when the storm knocked out our power for six days.

Here’s an example of how using the backs now provides two completed pages to view at once.

However, that flimsy front cover began tearing at the holes on the spiral binding. When I’d reinforced the cover in 2022, I hadn’t considered how the unreinforced holes would bear the increasing weight of the sketchbook.

So while the power was out, I showed Tom the problem, and as always, he devised a solution. He removed the front cover, cut another strip of the cardboard, glued it on the edge leaving extra space to punch holes, and put the front cover back on the spiral binding. I think this will hold until I finish filling the book. Maybe by then, I’ll have enough images to collage the front of another sketchbook–and when I do, I’ll pick one with a sturdier front cover.