Streamlining

[pasithea]

Perhaps the best thing about moving is the opportunity to re-examine your rat's nest of treasures and get rid of a bunch of it. Certainly that's the perk for me. I realize now that part of the reason I've been so slow to start is that Stacey tells me it's not worth getting rid of X Y and Z small things because I should spend time packing. But it's not true. a cubic foot of stuff here, a cubic foot there, it really adds up. So tonight I'm on the cull! Much junkness will be eliminated.

Stacey isn't the only person that tells me to keep junk. I have dozens of old sketchbooks dating back to 1990. All of my artist friends say 'You should keep them, you'll regret it in 10 years if you don't!' and yet I have more than 10 years of sketchbooks and I wouldn't regret having got rid of them.

I do recognize that not everythign I did in the past was crap. There's stuff that was eureka moments and stuff that has sentiment to me and even a few things that are good concepts, no matter how badly rendered they might be. So what I think I'll do is go through at least all the spiral bound books and razorblade out the few bits I think are important to me and put them in a binder and toss the rest. It's 20 or 30 lbs of dead weight and 3 cubic feet of space that I can clear up. Also, if I have bits I care about in a pre-culled format, I'm a lot more likely to actually look at it. There's no need to be so attached to physical things.

Tonight, I clean!

Comments

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

Another thought I've had about sketchbooks is to take the time to scan all the pages for your own digital records. Then if you have no attachment to the physical book, throw those away. The data might not be as warm and fuzzy, but you can still look back through your records of Sketchbook 17: Page 54.

:3

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Augh. No, that would have taken forever! I had ~20 150 page sketchbooks and I'd used the fronts and backs of all the pages. Besides. Much of it was old and faded pencil lines and would not have scanned well. Also, probably 70% of what I draw might be described as being similar to practicing the scales on a piano. Same arm, same pose repeated 30 times on a page. ... You'd think I'd be a better artist by now. :)