Never knowing when inspiration is going to strike, I always carry a sketchbook with me. I carry a few different cases of pens and pencils.
I also carry hard drives and flash drives and cords and adapters and tools and a whole lot of other things because I never know when I’m going to need them.
I carry a lot of crap with me.
I’m getting better. I used to carry a Disgear Discus filled with data CD’s that had fonts and utilities. You never know when a digital emergency may arise.
Yeah, my backpack weighed a ton!
Jamming all of that crap into a travel bag and commuting to work with it has been putting a beating on my sketchbooks. It’s part of the reason I encrust the covers with stickers — to protect the doodle pads, but I don’t want to put stickers on my Pen+Gear Sketch Diary with the nifty clear sleeve. That wouldn’t do.
The book shifting around my bag was also smearing some of the pencil drawings within. The corners were getting dented, too.
I needed a way to protect my sketchbooks. What I needed was a new slipcase.
I made the slipcase pictured above some time between 35 to 40 years ago. I was working in an art supply job, and there was always plenty of scrap foam-core around. I cut a bunch of various pieces and glued them together with a hot glue gun which was stupid because it didn’t hold very long. I pressed ahead with what I had and reinforced it with packing tape and duct tape.
Eventually, I worked in a different art supply store with a sign shop so there was no shortage of scraps of adhesive vinyl. I mummified it with vinyl and stickers.
After years of wear and tear, the foam core has no more structural integrity. It has a little more rigidity than a cloth sack. The only thing holding it together is the adhesive vinyl and duct tape. I still have it, but it has been retired from daily use.
I needed a new slipcase.
I fashioned the one pictured above out of cardboard of which there is plenty around work. There isn’t that much foam core which is fine — we rarely use it, and I won’t make that mistake again. There is more cardboard around the shop than I will ever need. Everything arrives to the print shop in cardboard. We fill dumpsters with the stuff. We’re not going to run out. It will be sturdier than the foam core and certainly cheaper. Being that cardboard is porous, glue really holds it together.
My only expense was $1.11 bottle of Elmer’s Glue.
A little planning, some scoring, some folding and a liberal application of white glue, and I wound up with a new slipcase a few decades after the original.
I have started the process of encrusting it with stickers. It looks a little naked now, but I’ll get there. Right now, my sketchbook is safe and sound.
