I’ve never been one for sketching. I can draw lines that are mostly straight, but I have always gone straight to the computer when I have an idea. But since coming to Carnegie Mellon, I’ve seen a couple of people with really gorgeous sketch notebooks. Beyond the aesthetics, sketching has value in that it allows the sketcher to get ideas would quickly without being able to delve into too many details. For a person who can get lost in execution and details, that’s a luxury.

So I recently gathered together a little set of pens to get me sketching. Getting the gear is half the fun, and hopefully it’ll make me sketch more regularly. I bought the pens from CMU’s bookstore, and I got the book—Sketching Ideas by CMU professor Mark Baskinger—from Amazon.

I was sitting at home last night, I took a stab at my first sketching. Here’s what I came up with. Expect to see more sketches in this space in the coming semester.