I once saw a sign in a store that I love that said “if you love us, buy something!” I felt guilty because it was a store I often browsed in, but I never bought anything from. I would have been sad to see it go away, but I hadn’t done anything to support them.
Following the same principle – if you love that there is a sketchbook project, sign up!
Send them $25 or so and get a sketchbook to turn into your own work of art. Or buy a tshirt for $25 to promote the concept. Or both!
It’s a challenge to create a sketchbook and send it away, perhaps never to see it again. But you can do it. And you don’t actually have to sketch, unless you want to! You can fill it with photographs or instagrams if you want to. Or tea bag wrappers. Or newspaper clippings. Or poems and quotes pasted ransom-note-style. Or postcards. It can be anything you want!
If you pull out all the pages as soon as you get it you can decorate/artify as many pages as you have the energy to do. Just rebind them into the cover when you’re done. Use thread or tape or staples or whatever you like – as long as it holds the pages into the cover. If your finished sketchbook is only 4 pages long, so be it. Some of my favorite books seen on the tour were only a fraction “finished” – sad, but at least I got to see them.
You don’t even have to use the paper that was in the sketchbook originally. Use an old map, collage over it, make it Art, then fold it up to fit inside the book cover and attach it somehow. Seriously, you can do whatever you want! (remember you’re trying to have fun while supporting people who love to share art – it doesn’t have to be a da Vinci quality sketchbook)
If you have 4 people or more who want to give it a go you can email art house for a discount. And if you work on it together you might be able to get it done long before Christmas (it’s due in mid-January) – make it a craftanoon thing.
I signed up a few weeks ago to do a travelogue. The themes this year are really different. I was tempted by the atlas, the photo log, the almanac. I might still do another one. But for now the travelogue will document the visit of my friends in July (having a specific theme helps you to get it done!)
I have ordered prints from printstagram so there will be small square photos dotted through the book, punctuated by ephemera from on our travels, and I hope to include some maps because I love maps! I was really inspired by a book I saw with hand drawn maps in different styles. I don’t quite know how it will work out until I see the little square photos, but it doesn’t really matter. I will make something and send it out into the world and probably never see it again.
Support Art House and the Brooklyn Art Library – make a sketchbook!
Jo:)
adventures in the here now 