Recently, I completed a 30 day sketchbook challenge course from Cheryl Taves of Insight Creative. The completed pages were shared on Instagram and reposted to Facebook. Although I would love to share many of the images from that experience, today I’m focusing on the artwork which has been inspiring me outside of the sketchbook.

I’ll begin with the page that filled me with joy and delight, both in the conception of it and in its creation. Now, I’m thinking of taking this idea and creating a similar piece in a larger size… and it has already inspired some titles for additional paintings. (Maybe a series?) I amused myself with this one by creating a pocket to hold my “notes”… while using my most favorite material: raw canvas. And the addition of the circle, paper, and threads made me quite the happy artist.

For several years, I’ve held a vision of a painting I wanted to create on canvas. So with some cloth and the words of Albert Einstein in hand, I proceeded to play with the idea on a sketchbook page. I loved the experience of seeing my idea come to life in an altered form. Now, both the original idea I had in mind, along with this sketchbook creation, have taken up residence within me, inspiring a desire to play with it more. (Variations on the theme on canvas?).

At this point, I might as well share this page too. I couldn’t resist taking the cloth pieces I cutout from the prior page and placing them in the same location they would have been but on a new page. (Playing with my first variation on the theme!) Once again I used the words of Albert Einstein and added some asemic writing scraped into the paint, a red square, and a similar black background.

I fell in love with a new color palette in the creation of this painted page. Since I was getting ready to leave for the day, it made sense to limit the time spent on the sketchbook page to 30 minutes. I grabbed some ivory black, titanium white, and yellow oxide paint to work with a limited palette, in order to create something in a limited time. I finished off the page with some text and music scraps that were on the art table within reach, and managed to achieve the 30 minute limit. Since that day, I have been inspired to use this color palette again and again.

I’ve loved experiencing the gifts of this sketchbook challenge… playing with ideas that have lived in my mind, exploring concepts that stimulate my creative thinking, trying things out that I would hesitate to do on canvas, and being reminded that we can continue our sketchbook practice even when time is limited.

So much inspiration can be found on the pages of a sketchbook.

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Inspired by Concertina Sketchbook Pages
Inspired by Concertina Sketchbook Pages - Part 2