Sue Bleiweiss - The Sketchbook Challenge: Techniques, Prompts, and Inspiration for Achieving Your Creative Goals

Copyright 2012 by Sue Bleiweiss

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Craft, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bleiweiss, Sue.
The sketchbook challenge: techniques, prompts, and inspiration for achieving your creative goals / Sue Bleiweiss.1st ed.
1. DrawingTechnique. 2. Notebooks. I. Title.
NC730.B543 2012
741.2dc23

eISBN: 978-0-307-96554-7

PHOTOGRAPHER: Sue Bleiweiss
PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT: Kathleen Murphy

v3.1

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of the artists who contributed their sketchbooks and artwork to this book. Thank you, Jill Berry, Jackie Bowcutt, Laura Cater-Woods, Violette Clark, Jane Davies, Jamie Fingal, Judi Hurwitt, Tracie Lyn Huskamp, Leslie Tucker Jenison, Lyric Kinard, Susan Brubaker Knapp, Lynn Krawczyk, Jane LaFazio, Kim Rae Nugent, Kelli Nina Perkins, Carol Sloan, Carla Sonheim, Kathy Sperino, Diana Trout, and Kathyanne White. Your contributions to the pages of this book truly make it a work of art. Many thanks to the artists who created the fabulous sketches for the theme Natures Beauty: Jill Booker, Dion Fowler, Daniel T. Haase, Gina Macioci, Kathleen Murphy, Catherine Parkinson, and Dana Strickland. Thanks also go to Joy Aquilino for asking me to consider writing a book, to my editor, Betty Wong, for her guidance and help in refining the books focus and putting it all together, to assistant editor Caitlin Harpin, and to designer Danielle Deschenes. And finally to Scott: thank you for your support and encouragement, which give me courage to follow my creative path and explore all of the challenges along the way.

How many times have you purchased a blank book with a beautiful cover and then tucked it away on the shelf because you thought it was too pretty to write in? Maybe you never thought about keeping a sketchbook because you believed they were only for serious artists. Or perhaps you opened the book, looked at the blank page, and wondered, Now what do I do? You want to fill the page, you just dont know what to fill it with.

It doesnt matter if youre just getting started on your artistic journey or if youve been at it for years; keeping a sketchbook is one of the most valuable tools in your artistic tool box. And as with any tool, you can learn to use it more effectively. Flip through my sketchbooks and youll find that they are filled with ideas, inspiration, and experiments that I use as a jumping-off point for new artwork. My sketchbooks are messy and unorganized and packed with a combination of line drawings, paint splatters, lists, and notes. Not an end result in themselves, my sketchbooks are the beginning of my art-making process and very often guide me to achieving a creative vision first brainstormed on their pages. The idea for my corset series is a perfect example of this. I was pasting photos I had taken of textured, rusty surfaces into a sketchbook and started thinking about the history of each surface. That in turn led to thoughts of old clothing and styles of dress in the late 1800s, which in turn sparked the idea of exploring the contradiction of the uncomfortable corset against all those layers of fabric. And so I began a series of corsets created from a very lightweight silk fabric altered with paint to resemble hard, cold surfaces like rusted metal or stone.

Even though Ive been a full-time artist for more than ten years, the fact is that it is all too easy to feel stuck, blocked, or uninspired when I stare at that blank page. If youve picked up this book, theres a good chance that you have experienced the same problem and are looking for a solution. This book invites you to put your sketchbook to good use. It is a guide filled with tips, hints, and tutorials to help you start and keep a sketchbook. And since a sketchbook is the launchpad for new art, the book also explores the process for translating your drawings, paintings, doodles, and notes into a finished piece of work.

In late 2010, I began the Sketchbook Challenge blog. It was an idea born from my resolution to keep a better, more consistent sketchbook. And because I had previously found that using themes in my sketchbooks helped keep me focused, I decided to invite some of the best artists I knew to participate in a monthly themed sketchbook challenge. Each month a new theme would be announced by an artist alongside pages from his or her private sketchbooks reflecting this theme. Others would be invited to participate by posting their own sketchbook pages. The idea came to me on a Friday and by Monday the Sketchbook Challenge blog was born. Word started to spread and by the end of the month, the blog had more than 43,000 visits, surpassing all my expectations. Now people from all over the world, working in all different mediums and at all artistic levels, are playing along with the challenges each month. It has been incredibly inspiring to see such a diverse mix of work and extremely motivating to see how the challenges have helped people find a new way of looking at their sketchbooks.

My goal with this book is to show you that there are many ways to approach keeping a sketchbook and that there is no right or wrong way to do it. Like the online challenge, this book showcases artists exploring different themes, and youll get an intimate look at the sketchbooks of some wonderful working artists. But this book takes it one step further to show you the artwork inspired by the sketchbooks, so you can see the creative process from start to finish. Ive also included an introduction to techniques that these mixed-media artists use in their sketchbooks and art pieces that will inspire more ideas for how to move visual concepts and brainstorms off the pages of your sketchbook and into finished pieces of art.

I hope that this book will not only encourage you to look at keeping a sketchbook in a new way but also inspire you to use it to help you explore and achieve your creative visions.

I wish you the best in all your creative endeavors!

{ Sue Bleiweiss }

Silk Corset by Sue Bleiweiss