The Sketchbook Project, Part III by artist Nancy Laliberte

Continuing on with the Sketchbook Project...

To bring you up to speed:  in November 2013, I signed up to be a part of the Sketchbook Project, which is a traveling library of artists' sketchbooks. My book will be traveling in the central US this summer with stops in Chicago, Madison, and Minneapolis. I will keep you posted on dates via this blog and the studio Facebook page. You can read about the previous two posts here and here.

 I pre-painted this page with gouache and added the washi tape right away when my sketchbook arrived. I often do that for a fun challenge to make a go of whatever is on the page when I get to it in the book. It's a great exercise in creative intuition, and not over-thinking about what you are doing. Just go with the flow. When I came to this page in the book, fish was the first thing that came to mind. I grabbed my Pentel pocket brush pen and white gel pen and dove in! ; )  

We have a pet goldfish named Maroon, and it is my 10 y-o son's job to feed it. He's quite good about doing so, but every so often you will hear someone ask, "Did you feed fishy today?"

This page was painted while I was vacationing in Florida earlier this year. Do you see the coastal, beach walk, flowers blooming instead of snowflakes falling influence? The left page was pre-painted with metallic copper paint. Other materials used were gel pens, permanent black pen, and acrylic paint.

From beaches to blizzards! Responding to my environment:  11 inches of snow fell on this day. It was beautiful watching the white stuff fall, but then came the reality of shoveling and snow blowing. Evidently, all that snow made my brain weary as I didn't get a final image of the completed page. Metallic silver paint, snowflake stamps and information on the weather was added after this photo was taken.

A bright and colorful page after the snowstorm. I love practicing painting ideas in my sketchbooks. There is no "preciousness" to it, just pure fun. To balance out the page (and to practice lettering), I added a favorite quote. Some washi tape and a bit of collaged paper was also used on this page.
   

This page features collaged paper with an acrylic painted purple coneflower (echinacea). Birds and butterflies love these flowers as much as I do, so I have them planted in various gardens in my yard. 

Ignoring the cold winter and thinking of summer poppies, that is the way I roll. This page was painted with acrylic paint. Since the paint was a bit thick in some areas, I applied a matte medium over it as an extra precaution to make sure the pages wouldn't stick--which can sometimes happen with acrylic paint. I included a modified page edge and butterfly from my ephemera collection.

The last page:  bright, cheery colors, the butterfly and a bit of inspiration...

The back cover:  Collaged paper, gold metallic paint (sparkle and shine, my friend) and trimmed with washi tape for durability.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about this project as much as I enjoyed doing it. I did not give myself any rules or theme, except to fill it up and have fun doing so, and send it back by the required date. I hope you are inspired to grab a notebook, sketchbook, or even a pad of scratch paper, some fun pens, watercolors, crayons, whatever, and play around with images, doodles, words, anything. Just start by making a mark, a swirl, or even a stick figure, and then go from there. Most of all, have fun and enjoy the journey...  

Nancy
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See more work at www.nancylaliberte.com
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