Brains on Paper

My friend Ann Turkle, a writer and long-time journal keeper, refers to some journals as "brains on paper."  I keep a couple of journals that seem to be well-described by this label.  One of them is shown below in three views.  It's a design notebook that I use for Piece Works, a micro-project that a friend and I share (see our blog at www.weRpiecework.blogspot.com) in which we design,  make,  and sell wallets and things made out of upcycled materials-- birdseed bags, chip bags, coffee bags, etc.  We do a fair amount of custom work and a large amount of troubleshooting as we research the strongest materials and how best to use them. 


This is a fold-out page that I taped in.  It's a design for a custom wallet.

This page shows measurements and directions for the same job.

And this page shows some troubleshooting that we did early on in the project when we were refining our basic designs.  The book itself I made out of a bird seed bag using the design described in Tutorial #2.  No one would call this art journaling;  I think of it as essential journaling!