The Sketchbook Project

I have been meaning to post about the Sketchbook Project for a few weeks now. I actually completed my assignment and sent it in on time! Wowza. This is the description from the website: "The goal of the Project is to get blank sketchbooks into the artists'  hands and then completed sketchbooks into the world for viewers to  enjoy." There are thousands of sketchbooks in this exhibit and it will be traveling around the country. Right now it is in Brooklyn, NY and next it will be in my neck of the woods (Portland, ME) from March 30-April 2, 2011.

The sketchbooks have themes, my book was "I'm sorry I forgot you..." and I worked on it from last fall until this Jan. so... if you didn't know I got divorced last fall... well, you can certainly tell which pages were done when things got really bad! I put a PDF and an e-book version of my sketchbook on my website. So if you are curious, go ahead and download it. Please don't use it for anything or resell it or creepy stuff like that. But I'd love to know what you think of it. I'm new to this "online book" idea and am terrified of the potential! (terrified, because it will mean I NEVER leave my computer!)

By the way, the page just above may look a teeny bit familiar. The tangles are in my "Yoga for Your Brain

" book (I did a LOT more this fall than just get divorced, give me a break!) If you haven't seen it, yet, the tangle is called "Flores DeCasa" as a play on words. I was born in Guam, in an Navy apartment called "Casa de Flores" (House of Flowers). This pattern is a "Flower of Houses". Get it? Sure. It is an example of a tangle I completely messed up during de-construction, but it became a whole lot more interesting in the end! And last note about the sketchbook - all the rubber stamps used in it are my designs (the fairy godmother is my son Alex's). The Rogue Muse is my second favorite page. And I scanned it before writing the title on the "Fossils and Flourishes" page. Oops.

I am supposed to be setting up an online store for my real-life store, Wingdoodle and the options are overwhelming. I am testing out an online service called e-junkie. If anyone has any experience with e-Junkie (good or bad) I'd appreciate hearing about it.

While researching examples of sites that use e-junkie, I stumbled across two really amazing websites. The first, Flying Pig, is a company we used to carry at Wingdoodle. They make animated paper models - you know, you turn the crank and the mummy dances. I had forgotten about them and was tickled to see all the fun new designs.

The second site, Mochimochi Land, actually made me squeal out loud! They have patterns for amigurumi type knitted creatures that defy description... ok, I'll try.... how about a happy, footed bathtub, with piles of smiling bubbles spilling out? Or one called "Mossy Ground"? It's a piece of brown ground with little bits of happy moss and mushrooms. Oh - just go look, I'm not doing them justice. I don't knit, but it would be fun to get the patterns and create the creatures with needle-felting.... oh, no, another project!

PS - "eeeeee" (another squeal) There are "Mochimochi

" books!!!