The Sketchbook Project

Today, I mailed back to Brooklyn my submission for The Sketchbook Project. I am giddy beyond words about the prospect of being a part of a traveling exhibit like this. And to have my stuff archived in their library? HUGE!


And, because I can’t just see the positive in anything (ha!), I’m also a little disappointed in myself because somewhere in the middle of the project, I lost steam and ended up rushing through the book near the end. I don’t think it helped that this project spanned two months over the holidays, but it was a really good exercise for me and I’m glad I participated. And as if luck would have it, the postmark deadline was moved to today, rather than last Saturday, so I had a little more time to work on it. 🙂


I uploaded my favorite pages to my flickr account:



Despite being disappointed with a bunch of the work I did in this book, I’m especially pleased with a good amount of the work. I gave myself permission to play, to doodle, to be silly and childlike. I scanned my favorite pages, which are in the flickr set here. I particularly love the happy accident that is the first picture in the above slideshow. She’s a little pink girl, who I found in a random watercolor scribble. She reminds me so much of my niece, Devin, in her Christmas photo from 2003, when she was almost a year old:


Devin, December 2003

 

Just for context: Devin just turned 8, is in 2nd grade, is an awesome artist, is about to make her first communion and has brown eyes now…

 

My other favorites in the slideshow are:

– the papertowel I used to clean some brushes (I save everything), which ended up looking like a mountain range. I collaged it onto the page  over some book page scraps.

– the little running doggie. I want to practice more of the watercolor scribbling — I’ve been doing that a lot on my own, but my class a few months ago with Carla Sonheim really “enabled” me.


So, that’s my story for today. Happy January, folks!


My arthouse co-op profile is here.


More info on The Sketchbook Project.