I hope you take a few minutes to thoughtfully read all the insights below; I’ve written down for you the ideas connected to the making of what is called a “Commonplace” book.

NO, I am not teaching you how to make (yet another) sketchbook.

Although it’d be fine if I were.

The Commonplace Book has a long, storied history in education. It used to be, well, so commonplace, that it was its own verb:

Commonplacing: The act of writing down, however imperfectly, all the direct quotes, Scriptures, notes from sermons or any sort of live teaching, but especially the act of writing down whole paragraphs or lines of quotes from books read.

For thousands of years, the great minds of every age have been talking to each other.

Plato talked. Augustine answered. Aquinas built on Augustine. Pascal argued with
Descartes. Dorothy Sayers sparred with C.S. Lewis over tea and theology. It didn't
matter that some of them were separated by centuries, the conversation crossed
time because the words were written down, and the words were written down because
someone cared enough to copy them out by hand.

Scholars call it The Great Conversation.

And here is what I want you to know: you are not outside of it.

You were never meant to be a spectator of the great ideas — you were meant to be a participant.

The moment you read a line that wrecks you, and you pick up a pen, and you write
it down in your own handwriting in a book you made with your own hands, you have
entered the conversation. You have added your voice. Your life, your margin notes,
your "yes…this…exactly this!!!" (or your argument to the contrary) written slowly in ink on paper is your answer across time to every mind that came before you.

This is what a Commonplace Book is. Not a journal. Not a planner. A place where
the great ideas land in your handwriting, in your life, doing their slow and holy work of forming you into someone.

I made this free class to teach you how to build one.

And the practice is one of the most grounding, beautiful and quietly defiant things I do.

So, to repeat myself, a “Commonplace Book” is NOT a sketch book in the traditional sense, though you could also sketch in it. And it is NOT a journal in which you spill out your own words and thoughts. A Commonplace Book IS, in my opinion, the most powerful journal to keep in terms of thriving in your creative practice.

To be honest, a Commonplace Book can be a notebook from the Dollar Store, but what’s the fun in that? It could also be a beautifully bound, expensive leather journal, but what’s the fun in that, when it could be this eye-catching handmade journal that we will make together in this class.

I keep mine in a glass box, sometimes in my living room, sometimes in my studio.

And when I make one as a gift to someone, I gift it in a glass box. (I’ve found the best size and price for glass boxes either here on Amazon or head on over to your nearest Hobby Lobby and look for one when they are half-off.)

In my studio Commonplace Book, I join the great art conversation. Meaning: I keep only Scriptures that give me insight into art and creativity, or quotes from the art books I read, or art-themed quotes from the things I run across online or on social media. I am training myself, every time I sit down with a book related to art or making or creativity, to also grab my Commonplace Book and a pen.

My “commonplacing” isn’t perfect. It does not look amazing. But it’s perfectly amazing to me. It is lovely to me, to have all these beautiful concepts on art and creativity - the ones that resonate the deepest with me - all in one place, right there in my studio.

This way, the pile of art books can continue to be spread across every room in my house - and they are. But the creme’ de la creme’, the best of the best of alllllll that inspiration, spread across alllllllll those books, gets to be contained for perusing. All of it remains at my fingertips, any time I need some inspiration. No moving heavy piles of books involved!

It’s my best kept secret. It’s a perfect practice.

There is a link between the head and the heart, and I swear to you -

it’s the hand. It’s that embodiment I keep referencing in blogs and social media. It’s that somatic relationship I talk about all the time in podcasts. Anything you write down with your pen in hand (or sketch or paint) becomes part of you in a way that just reading or just hearing, or just watching something on a screen, or even typing on a keyboard, can never become part of you.

The Commonplace Book is a time honored tradition that generations have used to integrate their book learning into their real life.

It deserves its own class. It deserves its own workshop. Because all the elements of a thriving studio discipline, such as the sketchbook or scrapbook or color studies, can be woven into your Commonplace Book. The method can grow with your art practice and become one of your most valuable grounded pleasures, and physical possessions.

I can easily see myself - once the pages of mine are full - grabbing my Commonplace Book, my Bible, a few pictures, and my metal lock box with all my documents, if my house were ever to catch fire.

On to the video tutorial, below. Enjoy!