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!

Two Creative Studios

If you haven't been over to Two Creative Studios yet, now's the time to visit.

The site is run by the extremely talented artists, Terri Stegmiller and Sue Bleiweiss. Terri and Sue are endlessly energetic, writing amazing articles on all manner of mixed-media creations, offering classes- both online and single download pdf's- and of course, creating beautiful art.

Each lady has their own special style, and having taken several classes from Sue (and wanting very much to take a class from Terri soon), I can tell you that they are warm, receptive and incredibly helpful as teachers and as artists.

And today I'm really juiced, because not only did they publish a new FREE tutorial on soy wax batik'ing, they have also announced a special give-away of all kinds of fun goodies for three lucky winners. All you have to do is go to their site and sign up for their newsletter!

Trust me when I tell you, this is not one of those hokey spam things, these ladies and their writing, techniques and talent are the real thing. So go sign up and be entered in the give-away. You won't be sorry.

Happy creating!

P.S. These beauties arrived today... license plate covers for my car!

Cool, huh?