Sketchbook Project

Our school has a furlough day today (due to budget issues), which means nobody has access to the school even if they want to go in.  So I thought it would be a good time to focus on my Sketchbook Project (see icon on my sidebar for link).  I learned about the project from Phyl's blog, There's a Dragon in my Art Room, and immediately was intrigued and sent away for the sketchbook.  Like Phyl said in her blog when she received the book in the mail, it is a bit daunting to look at 40 empty, white pages and know that you have committed to filling them by a deadline in January.  However, I gave it some thought for a few days and then plunged in.  You choose a topic when you register -- mine is "it's raining dogs and cats", which they say you can consider loosely as your direction.  I decided to divide my book into 6 chapters, which helped give me direction and a structure for variety. The biggest challenge for me is actually that the pages are quite thin. You can see how some of the watercolor and ink from the previous page bleeds through on the left. I am using ballpoint pen to minimize that.

If I had it to do over again, I would probably take the time to replace them with thicker paper to accommodate watercolor (it wouldn't have taken then much extra time), but I was impatient to start in.

It has really been fun and not nearly as time consuming as I originally feared.  Each of my chapters has incorporated dogs and/or cats in some way. The last chapter is going to be some kind of collage with photos of pets (past and present) that have touched my life.  I went over to my mom's yesterday to plow through her old photo albums to get pictures of our childhood pets to scan, print, alter and collage into the sketchbook.

It was fun sharing the search with my mother and now it's time to get busy.  If anyone is looking for a fun project click on the icon at the bottom of this blog for details. They have extended the deadline for registering until Nov. 15 and the sketchbook is due back Jan. 15. They have also added some good new topics (that I'd have chosen if they had been available when I registered!!)

The only thing that might impede my progress today is that since I started writing a large, noisy machine filled with icky black tar has arrived next door to begin a roofing project.  Not sure I can stand the smell for long -- might have to go shopping instead (oh, well!!).