The Sketchbook Challenge

I call my sketchbooks my

PAPER BRAIN

These books are filled with doodles, drawings, composition studies, grocery lists, exercises, and nothing in particular. They are one of my favorite resources for new ideas. If I don't jot down ideas immediately they simply evaporate into the ether that is between my ears. I love these books. I'll never leave them. 

But...

Starting next year I'm taking it to the next level!

I'd like to invite you to join me for

Perhaps you want to start keeping a sketchbook but every time you sit down with a book in front of you and pencil in hand you freeze up and just can't seem to get started.  Might it be helpful to take a glimpse into another artists sketchbook to see how they use theirs? Do you need a nudge or an idea to get you started?

The sketchbook challenge is a new project launching on 1/1/2011. Follow along with us as we fill our sketchbooks based on a monthly theme that will be announced on the first of each month.

You’ll be keeping company with some inspirational artists including

Jill Berry
Sue Bleiweiss
Laura Cater-Woods
Jamie Fingal
Judi Hurwitt
Leslie Tucker Jenison
Lyric Kinard
Jane LaFazio
Carol Sloan

Carla Sonheim
Susan Sorrell
Melanie Testa
Diana Trout
Violette Clark

Each month we’ll announce a new theme on the sketchbook challenge blog then show you images from our sketchbooks and talk about the intention and inspiration behind them.  Along the way we’ll be sharing tips, techniques and tutorials.  We hope that by giving you a peek inside our sketchbooks and showing you how different they all are that we’ll inspire you to start keeping a sketchbook of your own.  And of course if you do, we’ll want to see some photos of your book too so we’ve designed a blog badge for you to put on your own blog to show your participation in the project.  You can get instructions and the html code for your badge here.

We encourage you to post photos of your sketchbook pages on your blog and then post a link in the comment section of the Sketchbook Challenge blog so that others can look at your pages too!

And here is something fantastic to sweeten the pot ... thanks to the generosity of some terrific sponsors we’ll be doing some givewaways and special shopping offers!

So pick up your blog badge, go grab a sketchbook, some pencils, pens, markers or paints and get ready to sketch with us!