The Sketchbook Project

A few weeks ago The Sketchbook Project's mobile library came to Steamboat. This is part of an amazing collection of 31,400 sketchbooks from 135 countries! To participate as an artist you get a blank book from them, fill it up, and send it back. The books then live at the Brooklyn Art Library in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. They may also go on tour and be scanned to be available digitally.

 

Here is the mobile library parked at the Bud Werner Memorial Library in Steamboat Springs.



And here is a nice reading area where you can look through the sketchbooks.

At the same time, our local library was handing out single sketchbook pages for community members to illustrate what Steamboat is to them. I took a page and used some of my stamps. The library displayed the pages and people voted on their favorites. Mine was one of the winners! Here is a link to the six favorites. Now all of the pages will be bound together into a book.

As a prize I got a beautiful card, a Sketchbook Project pencil, and a rather intense chocolate bar. I couldn't handle the chocolate alone, but tonight I turned it into a couple of amazing mugs of hot cocoa. Yum! I also got my own blank sketchbook to fill that will hopefully go on tour next year.

I really need to keep this sketchbook low stress and I wanted to try something different, so Tessa and I are doing a collaboration! She is doing some drawing with pen, and then I'm doodling and turning her scribble into something using a pencil. Here is the little artist with her first drawing.

And here is how our first drawing turned out.

I'm going to be looking at some of the scanned sketchbooks online when I have free time. Let me know if you have one in the database!

Baby Sings Progress

I'm working to finish one or two more spreads from Baby Sings before binding everything into a book dummy. I need to have it done for the Rocky Mountain Chapter SCBWI Conference on September 20th.
I thought it would be fun to show you how the artwork looks now and how it looked when I first drew it on my iPhone screen in the dark while nursing Tessa. I stayed pretty close to my original idea!

Book Project with Clara Boza

I'm starting a new collaboration with my friend Clara Boza that I'm really excited about. I've taken 3 different bookmaking classes with Clara over the years. She is a writer, book artist, and printmaker who lives in Asheville, NC.

Here's Clara with me and Tessa in Santa Fe for Laura Wait's bookmaking class this July.

We are starting with a bunch of folded blank book pages. This month, I gave Clara a word and she gave me a different word to illustrate through image or text on the left sides of our blank pages. Then for September, we will trade pages and respond on the right side to what the other person did with their word. The month after that, we will start over with new words. And after a while we will bind them into books!

For August, Clara gave me the word Susurrus which I had to look up for a definition.

su·sur·rus

so͝oˈsərəs/

noun literary

whispering, murmuring, or rustling.

"the susurrus of the stream"

I don't think I've ever read this word in a book, but poking around online, it seems like most people use it to describe water flowing or trees rustling. And these images really stuck with me, so I decided to draw my little girl playing in the creek like we did a few weeks ago. I'm happy with how my first page of this collaboration turned out and I can't wait to see what Clara did with the word I gave her!

Illustration Friday: Journey

No one knows when Birdland first launched. There are rumors that it originated in Peru or perhaps somewhere in the Mediterranean. All we know is that Birdland has been traveling for years over oceans, jungles, and cities. It is only spotted by the most dedicated bird watchers and those campers who prefer to sleep under the full moon. Please report sightings to your local Audubon Society.

Art Drop Day

This is something fun that I'm looking forward to as copied from Jake Parker's site-

An open call to action to ALL artists everywhere! 

Announcing

All artists, (that means students and professionals, painters and cartoonists, sculptors and illustrators, animators and fine artists, EVERYONE who creates) this September 2nd is World Art Drop Day. Wherever you find yourself that day, drop a piece of your art and tell someone where to find it. The world needs this right now. We need to feel a little more connection to each other and there's nothing like the bond two random strangers can make through the act of creating and giving.

I recently just finished a cross-country art drop this summer and it was exhilarating. The emails and responses I received from the finders ran the gamut of funny to touching. I want that for everyone!

Here's how it works:

• Draw a picture and hide it somewhere.
• Take a photo of either the art or the hiding spot or a combination of both.
• Post the image, the city you dropped it in, and a hint on any social media of your choice. Be sure to included the hashtag: #artdropday
• Then move on, hoping someone finds it. OR hang around and meet your new friend.

That's it!

I need your help spreading the word on this. Reblog it, retweet it, facebook it, or even tell someone in person!

September 2nd, lets connect the whole planet with art!

Background Music

I've been having fun getting the background collages done so that I'll be able to print linocuts on top of them. This is the first finished art for my Baby Sings dummy. The process may seem familiar because this is how I made Whale Song. That was a test, and I'm glad I worked out the kinks with Whale Song so I can be fast now. Because I want to submit this dummy for a critique at the Rocky Mountain Chapter SCBWI Conference in September. And I have to mail it out in a week. Hurry, hurry!! Here's how it's coming along-