Here’s my sketchbook, still drying at the 11th hour.
There is an excellent place in Williamsburg called the Brooklyn Art Library which is, first and foremost, the home of The Sketchbook Project– a library of thousands of sketchbooks filled with original drawings, paintings and photographs made by artists of all stripes over the past 7 years (it all started in Atlanta in 2006, but moved to Brooklyn, like so many do, in 2010)
Each year all sorts of doodlers, be they professional artists, designers, hobbyists or, for example, my daughter, fill the 32 pages of a blank sketchbook with their work, send it off to Brooklyn to be catalogued, digitized (if they so choose) and then sent off on a national tour, to be checked out by like minded souls all over the country.
It’s an awesome project, and I have wanted to participate for years, but have only now, just this week, finally gotten it together to hand one in.
At the last minute, of course. (See above photo of the spray adhesive drying in front of the heater before I take the book in)
But I had a blast doing it. My daughter and I both got our books at the same time. This summer. She finished hers in a day, and it is brilliant. (mind you, I’m biased, but still…) Another day for the collage on the cover and she was off to the races.
I had a more complicated concept that involved photos (because lets face it, I can’t draw to save my life) which I had to edit, print and affix to the pages I had decorated (that’s where the doodling part came in.) I started in August, finished the backgrounds over the weekend and then did all the rest of it on Monday night, between the time my husband came home from work and took over (bless him) and… um… 5 am. Just like college!
Here’s a sample page, haphazardly shot right before I had to run out the door to hand it in. The left image is of some amusement park on Long Isand and the right is of one of the best performances of an operatic duet I have ever seen, at a community center on the tiny island of Ilseboro, ME.
The book made it to it’s new home just in the nick of time and will now go on tour and spend the rest of it’s days surrounded by other bursts of human creativity.
A few more pages. These were all shot in Mumbai:
And these are two different displays of items for sale. One at MOMA, the other in Rockaway:
Here’s hoping that this sketchbook will help inspire some other people to make something creative. Because at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.
Oh and here’s a cute video that the Art Library folks made about the project. Not sure when the 2014 sign ups begin, but you should all think about doing a book… it’s fun… and you don’t have to stay up till 5 am to finish it, I swear…
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