My daughter gifted me with participation in the Sketchbook Project last year — coolest gift ever! — and I’m finishing up my sketchbook. Though I’ve been keeping art journals for years, the Sketchbook Project was challenging for me, in part because I was trying to do a “real” sketchbook (as opposed to illustrating a story, or drawing from my imagination), and in part because the paper in the Project journal is too thin for my usual watercolor washes. I wasn’t always happy with the pages I did, and I’m still a little concerned about my warts-and-all sketches going out into the world, but it was good to try something new; to move in a new direction. And since “new” is the Illustration Friday theme this week, here are a few pages from my sketchbook.
Carol Kotsher Marden 