Pink Bird Studio

Sketchbook Project Begins - at last...

As mentioned, I'm participating in the Sketchbook Project again this year.  I hope to attend one of the travelling shows this year - I was thrilled to hear that the show will be coming to Canada this time. 

I was tempted to choose "open" theme - so easy to make pretty pictures!  But this year I decided to pick a theme instead.  I chose "In 10 Minutes", and frankly I've been struggling with it.  My fallback position was to make each page in 10 minutes or less (more pretty pictures - yeah!), but I knew that wasn't really what I wanted to do, so I've buckled down and managed to get a good start on it over the weekend.  You will just have to wait and see how the theme takes shape because although a good part of it is in my head (and some even down on paper), most of it is continuing to gel.

Here's the cover.  This is what it looks like open.

When the book is closed you'll just see this from the front:

And this is the first page on the inside.  During the coming weeks (yes "weeks", not months - yikes!) I'll be showing you the bingo cards only before they get glued into the book as they're much easier to scan flat.  I just wanted to show what the pages will look like assembled.  I used the same background stamp on each page that will frame my collages.

 

You can find out more about the dates and locations of the tour here.  There will be thousands of books on display again at 12 locations throughout North America. 

Another Sketchbook Project Page

Don't you love getting good junk mail?  The entire two-page spread was covered with the back of a take-out menu that came in my mailbox yesterday!  I covered up the name with the strip of ledger paper stamped with a row of houses from Hero Arts.  I stamped the menu page with my favourite flower stamp from Rubber Stampede using Stayz-on ink (the menu is glossy), and added the lovely lady from ARTchix Studio and found words from old ledger paper.

Sketchbook Project

Thought I would share how I'm using my postcards for the Sketchbook Project.  This first one was made at "Collage and Film Night" at the Vancouver Island School of Art in October.  We watched "How to Draw a Bunny" and made mail art with found materials - what fun!

 

This one was from Sunday Postcard Art's Travel Theme.  I am adding these to my book and stamping the date and theme on the facing page. 

Sketchbook Project

Well, I've decided to really pull out all the stops and try to get my sketchbook project done on time.  As the e-mail I received from the Art House Co-op today reminds, there are less than two weeks 'til the mailing deadline. I'm "cheating" by using a lot of my postcards from Sunday Postcard Art, so I won't show each and every page, but here are a couple done in the last few days.

This first was done on Sunday:

When I say "how done is done enough?" I'm being serious.  Does each and every page have to be "finished" or even "started" to be "done?  I'm not sure it does - that certainly wasn't one of the rules.  So if I get to the deadline and the book is 3/4 full I might still just send it in.  Any thoughts?

The second spread was fun.  I used some sort of vocabulary card that I bought at a recent visit to Ruby Dog's Art House that had the words "know" and "jump" on it.  I added the rest of the words with my trusty Hero Arts alphabet, and stamped the skyline and stars (Tim Holtz), and finally added the found image that I clipped from a newspaper last time I was in Vancouver.  I knew it would be put to good use eventually!

 

More Calendar Pages for Helga's Challenge

I made a couple more spreads in my sketchbook project book using my old Cavellini calendar pages.  This is part of a challenge to use up last year's calendar (and potentially win an ARTchix Studio gift certificate!).  You can find all of the details on Helga's blog, or see my last post about it here.

In this first spread I used the big flower and leaves and bird and dates from the August page of my calendar.  I added the lovely red and gold paper and blue butterfly from ARTchix Studio, along with the fun Canadian bank draft and hand written sheet music that I picked up at Ruby Dog's Art House in Vancouver.  The lovely tulip stamp came on mail all the way from Germany.

For this next spread, I used the bird, pumpkins(?) and the two largest butterflies from the calendar.  I added a piece of vintage map, Chinese newspaper, lovely birdcage paper and smallest butterfly from ARTchix and some vintage ledger paper from Ruby Dog's. 

This is such a fun challenge - you have until January 10 to play along!