The Sketchbook Project

I am participating again in The Sketchbook Project: "a global, crowd-sourced art project and interactive, traveling exhibition of handmade books. Our mission is to allow anyone to be able to participate in art and to create a collection of work that represents the current state of artists worldwide." Click on the link above to find out more.

Looking back at the digital library of my artwork on their site, I've participated in 3 other Sketchbook Projects and several of their art projects. The Art House Co-op, that runs the SBP has amassed some amazing numbers: 70,659 people have participated worldwide, the project has travelled 52,333 miles, there are 11,575 cities with participants worldwide, you'll find 28,271 Sketchbooks in the collection (you create your sketchbook and send it to the Art House Co-op Library), there has been 155,443 total Sketchbooks checkouts, 2,340,678 books viewed in the digital library and 57,240 library cards issued world wide. AMAZING!! Of course these numbers change, but are current as of Jan 9, 2014.

Okay, so I signed up and received my sketchbook months ago and did not pick it up until a few days ago. Working under pressure with a deadline is always a good instigator for me, so I got started. And even though this is due to be postmarked Jan 15th, I am well into it and I know it will be done & sent on time. I deconstructed the book and put some of the pages together to make longer folding pages as you see here.... Then, because the theme I chose is "Greetings from" - I decided it to be "from Florida" and went in search of photos to illustrate this. I figured I would use some of my own photos with mixed media techniques and journaling, perfect!! Here you see how I have used my photos along with watercolor pencils on the same page- larger view. I've also added some water directly to my photos printed out on plain copy paper; it makes the ink run just a bit in unusual ways. I will add another blip when this book is farther along.

When I finish this sketchbook, I will send it off and never see it again, except online in the digital library, or if I go to one of the Tour Stops, procure a library card and check the book out to view! Then return it to the shelves. It is not for the faint of heart! For me, I simply like the act of creating it and being part of a larger creative project. I remembered that I made a short video of the last sketchbook I made for a different tour . . . if you are interested, you can view it on YouTube here.

And last, but not least... Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments I read today! Even though I did not get to visit many of you today -busy with this- Your kind and funny words were welcome and appreciated : ^ ) lenna