Inspired by the wonderful sketches shared at moleskinerie, I finally succumbed to buying my first moleskine… without lines. As an ardent disciple of the mantra “stay between the lines” in my journaling over the years, I seem to be more comfortable writing in a ruled journal rather than face the challenge of a truly blank page. Since I paint using words, it seemed unnecessary and somewhat frightening to lose the safety of those lines. Perhaps it’s that bane of all writers, to be stuck “staring at a blank page,” that kept me buying ruled journals all these years. Somehow I always count those printed lines as page occupants, thus preventing my mind from seeing blank pages… or perhaps I thought the lined pages weremore accepting of my handwriting. Working past all that, I still hesitated to change my process, even as I purchased my new blue-banded beauty… yet I could not ignore my suppressed internal sketcher any longer.