Welcome to the Sketchbook Challenge!

So you want to start keeping a sketchbook but every time you sit down with a book in front of you and pencil in hand you freeze up and just can't seem to get started.  Wouldn't it be helpful to be able to get a glimpse inside another artists sketchbook to see how they use theirs?  Well you're in luck because help is on the way!

The Sketchbook Challenge is a new project launching on 1/1/2011. Follow along with us as we fill our sketchbooks based on a monthly theme that will be announced on the first of each month.

You'll be sketching alongside:

Jill Berry 
Sue Bleiweiss
Laura Cater-Woods
Jane Davies 
Jamie Fingal 
Judi Hurwitt
Leslie Tucker Jenison 
Lyric Kinard
Jane LaFazio
Kelli Perkins 
Carol Sloan
Carla Sonheim 
Susan Sorrell
Melanie Testa
Diana Trout
Violette

Each month we'll announce a new theme on our blog and throughout the month we'll be showing you images from our sketchbooks and talking about the intention and inspiration behind them.  Along the way we'll be sharing tips, techniques and tutorials.  We hope that by giving you a peek inside our sketchbooks and showing you how different they all are that we'll inspire you to start keeping a sketchbook of your own.  And of course if you do, we'll want to see some photos of your book too so we've designed a blog badge for you to put on your own blog to show your participation in the project.  You can download the badge here.

We encourage you to post photos of your sketchbook pages on your blog and then post a link in the comment section of the Sketchbook Challenge blog so that others can look at your pages too!

And that's not all! Thanks to the generosity of some terrific sponsors we'll be doing some givewaways and special shopping offers too!

So pick up your blog badge here, go grab a sketchbook, some pencils, pens, markers or paints and get ready to sketch with us!