The Sketchbook Project

Way back in the summer I signed up to be a part of The Sketchbook Project. The brainchild of the folks at the Art House Co-op and The Brooklyn Art Library, the idea was to ask artists to submit a sketchbook for their permanent collection and to go on tour. As they put it, "It's like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks." They had 28,835 people request sketchbooks from 94 countries! The tour starts in February at the Brooklyn Art Library and then goes on to Portland, ME, Washington D.C., Atlanta, GA, Winter Park, FL, Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, San Francisco, CA and Seattle, WA. Go here if you'd like more info on where the tour will be in each city. If you go, you'll be able to check out sketchbooks to look at – even request one if you know someone who's on tour! Each sketchbook is barcoded, so we'll (the artists) know when someone has checked out our sketchbook to look at! How cool is THAT?

I took the pages that the sketchbook came with out and added in my own pages, made from my favorite hot press watercolor paper. My theme (each sketchbook had a theme so viewers could browse by theme) was "I'm A Scavenger". I've been collecting bits of found paper (aka trash on the ground), magazine blow-in cards, free postcards at restaurants – stuff my naturally scavenderous self is attracted to. It all went in a pile and got sorted as I began working in my sketchbook.

The covers were laid out and then some stencils were added…I had to be careful not to cover up my library barcode.

My work table looked like this for quite a while as it all came together…

…bits getting laid out…

…magazine blow-in subscription cards were cut up into bits to be reassembled. Who knew that junk mail could be rearranged with such a beautiful outcome? I like this so much – it's like paper mosaic – I think I'll experiment some more.

I used a view finder to see little abstract paintings in the wax paper that covered part of my work table. 

A piece of a Chipotle food wrapper found on the ground and a condom from a walk the day after Halloween ???? (unopened, or else eeeewwww). Both became bits of a larger collage landscape. 

The scavenger transforms the lost, the discarded into beauty. I call it found enchantment. Here's a little video of the whole sketchbook. Hope the tour comes to a city near you! Hours could be lost perusing pages and pages of this great creative concert.