I wanted to draw something detailed, yet calm and quiet. Hence the dominance of the pencil over the ink.
Ink and pencil, signed
As someone who has filled hundreds of sketchbooks in his life, I was always asking myself over the years, "Why can't sketchbooks be works of art, in their own right?"
Why not, indeed... One day I decided to stop asking and start doing. About a year ago I started drawing single pieces in sketchbooks and started selling them, framed.
Some of the pages get glued down to keep them from flapping and curling up underneath the frame over time. The actual sketchbook serves as a "Found Object", similar to the way the way the plain, simple, wooden box worked as a found object for Joseph Cornell. No, I don't fill up the whole sketchbook. In terms of the piece itself, that would be conceptually pointless, not to mention, extremely expensive and time-consuming. Most sketchbooks are "used" once they're filled up. But a sketchbook that's "used" with only one drawing in it? That's kind of interesting to me: "You're only allowed one drawing. Make it count, Laddie..."
I use the "Moleskine" brand of sketchbook, at least for now, simply because the preferred brand of many of my friends. It's a known quantity, which gives people a certain "geeky" context.
I don't use literally just sketchbooks. I'll use ruled notebooks as well. Or the ones with graph paper. Or musical notation. Or blank notebooks. Whatever. Sometimes I like to play around, try different things.
It's the utter simplicity of the format that appeals to me. Life is complicated enough.