Playing Hooky from Quilting with Sketchbook Skool

Me sketching on our recent road trip

If I'm not making art of some sort, I feel out of sorts...as though I haven't brushed my teeth or had my morning coffee, so when my husband and I bought a van and converted it to a camper (see PromastertoCamper.blogspot.com) I was happy about the idea of hitting the open road once again, but in a bit of a panic about having a portable art form.  I have 300 square feet of studio space that is bursting at the seams...how could I begin to take a project on the road?

Messy pages from an old studio sketchbooks

Enter Sketchbook Skool.  Danny Gregory and Koosje Koene conceived the idea of bringing together a cadre of skilled sketchbook artisits to teach sketchbooking techniques online.  I've kept a sketchbook/journal for decades, but my sketchbooks are a messy place where I dash out ideas that might one day become a quilt, scribble ideas I don't want to forget, and just doodle.  For me a sketchbook has been a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.  Although I've always envied the beautifully composed sketchbooks of people like Cathy Johnson, Gabriel Campanario, and lots of others that I can't think of right off the top of my head, I've never tried to make one myself..





So, when I stumbled on Sketchbook Skool back in March of this year, I realized I could up my game in sketchbooking, and have a portable art form to take on the road.  I didn't need to buy ANYTHING since I've been a compulsive buyer of pens, pencils, paints and sketchbooks since I was old enough to get an allowance,

Thanks to Sketchbook Skool, I'm sketching daily, which is bound to improve my art quilting, to say nothing of the quality of my sketchbooks, and sketching is so portable!    I haven't really found my style yet; I love watercolor, but the paper in my Moleskine journal doesn't love watercolor.  The paint just sits in a puddle on the surface and has to be scrubbed into the paper, but my rule is finish one journal before starting another, so I persist.   I'm really enjoying the process, even though I have some unfinished quilt pieces that are calling my name.  I should get back to my studio, but first I want to sketch just a little more!