There are hundreds of online art challenges that you can get involved in. They sometimes involve themes, lists, timeframes, and media. They motivate, inspire and challenge and people get involved in different ones for different reasons.

I have described some below and added links to the sketches/art for you to browes if you are interested. I have had a great time putting this together as it brought back so many memories.

I have been involved in a few and have enjoyed them immensely. I am writing this blogpost now as one of them has come full circle and some of my Sketchbooks that have been in NEW YORK for a few years have now come home I will share the Sketchbook Project adventure and talk about some others.

Sketchbook Project

Since its founding as a non-profit organization in 2006, the Sketchbook Project grew to include over 50,000 artists’ books, which have been contributed by 30,000+ artists from over 135 countries. Each book is 5″ x 7”, with 16 blank pages and a unique six-digit barcode, for cataloging and tracking purposes.

THE IDEA- sign up for a sketchbook and you are given one of many themes and can interpret it any way you want, as long as the book is returned the same size so that it can fit back on the shelf in Brooklyn Art Library in New York.

They were housed in New York and some were included in regular pop-up tours around the US. Mine even toured Australia and I saw it! You could borrow a book (specific or random) to browse on-site and would be given ones either side of it from the shelves. That way you got to see lots of people’s interpretations of the same theme

After 17 years, hundreds of thousands of book checkouts, over 50k sketchbooks created, and thousands of miles traveled, the Brooklyn Art Project is now closed.

On Monday, February 28th, 2022 the moving trailer that was transporting the entire Sketchbook Project collection from Brooklyn to St. Pete was in a devastating accident Around 70% of The Sketchbook Project collection was saved through the heroic efforts of local volunteers, firefighters, and community members from a nearby church who so kindly moved each box of books one by one into their parking lot. They lost around 7,000 books from the collection. One was mine – Travelogue. But I do have the scanned version and I have printed it as well.

Last year, the wonderful volunteer team decided that it was “No longer financially viable.” to continue. The books were distributed to other galleries. I decided this was the moment that my sketchbooks came home.

Below are my projects

Sketchbook Project 2013 Travelogue

I revisited my Paris 2007 holiday, as if I was sketching as I do now ! .. and of course planning how would approach future travel sketchbooks. I sketched from photographs.

Sketchbook Project 2012 : Sandwiches. I decided to draw the memories of my Primary School sandwiches (1970’s Australia). I had such FUN doing this one. I researched original packaging from the time and chatted with my brother and mum to see if my memories were the same as theirs!

Sketchbook Project 2010 : The View From Up Here

sketches from imagined a hot air balloon ride over scenes I had in photos or located online from A-Z

Sketchbook project 2009 : Elephant in the room

I interpreted this literally – going to the zoo and sketching and photographing elephants and then drawing them in rooms.

EveryDay in May

Another challenge – this one is still going. A list is posted on the Flickr and facebook page on 1st May and you draw one item on the list (see below) every day in May until you finish on 31st May with number 31.NO stress if you miss a day – just go on to the next one and catch up if you can. It is ok to combine a few, or to jump around if it suits…but the ideal is to do the right one on the day like everyone else….but most importantly have fun! This was and still is a wonderful project.

EveryDay in May

I had to go back to the Archives and found this description on Liz Steel’s website

Started originally by French Toast Girl, the idea was to do something creative every day for the month of May. The first few years that I was online,  everyone in the Everyday Matters(EDM) group did a different thing ( The daily discipline was great.Then in 2010 a few of us in Sydney were chatting and decided we would draw the same things – using the EDM list for inspiration. There was only a few people doing it, I managed the list manually on my blog – wow – those were the days! It was so much fun to see everyone drawing the same thing each week, and the great thing about the EveryDay Matters list is that a lot of them are prompts rather than specific objects so you have the chance to be creative.

2020 2016 2015 2013 2012 2010 2009

One Million Giraffes

My two contributions to a fun website that aimed to collect one million hand created giraffe images by 2011.  www.onemilliongiraffes.com.

Illustration Friday – click on the link to see my Album of sketches

Illustration Friday was a weekly illustration challenge. A topic was posted every Friday and then participants have all week to come up with their own interpretation
it was at www.illustrationfriday.com/

Below is my response to Paisley

I prefer to call them projects rather than challenges. I love a project and a deadline ! They can be individual however being involved can also connect you to a larger community.

All of these started in 2009. I started adding photos and then scan of my art to Flickr in 2008. It must have been a time when I was looking for creative outlets. We had Sydney Sketch Club, but Urban Sketchers had not started up in Sydney.

Three Sydney friends & I used to meet once a month at a food court in Sydney to work on our Sketchbook Projects. We still kept meeting after some had decided not to continue. We still meet now on Zoom and I write the meeting in my diary as SBP (SketchBook Project)

EveryDay in May – posted to Flickr (a photo sharing website) . I am still in contact with some of the group from 2009 and Mum participated each year too. The only time of the year she sketched It took a few days for her to warm up but she was great !

Giraffes was a great project – Mum drew more than me!

I don’t do as many challenges anymore as I have so many art projects in my life. International Nature Journalling Week starts on June 1. I will be focusing on their broader prompts and themes and thinking a lot more, rather than responding to a subject/object.

What challenges do you do ?

I had the opportunity to sketch at Lyrical Lunchtimes, a concert in the Supreme Court Library in Melbourne Victoria. There is a piano in the Library, belonging to a previous Chief Justice and it is played on special occasions – like last Friday.

The music program was presented by a group called BottledSnail Productions, who all work in the legal profession.

I have sketched these concerts in the past and they are always a challenge. There is always a variety of musicians and it is visually overwhelming. There were seven performances in the concert, which went for over 1 hour 15 minutes. This means that the performers are not “on stage” for long.

You will see below that I did some quick sketches as well as one major sketch. I had a different approach this time. Firstly I sketched in watercolour pencil and not ink pen. I usually use my Lamy Safari Joy Ink pen to sketch the people at events and then add watercolour pencil.

My second change was to block out the main features before the concert began. I work in this library, so I had the opportunity to walk around the room on the day before and look at the different viewpoints, trying to imagine chairs in place and guessing where the musicians may stand. Below is a view I rejected – too much floor space from an angle that may not have guaranteed a good view of the performers. I sketched out the major features on the page, so those lines were in place before the concert began, and I could start with the audience as they took their seats.

Below is the main sketch halfway through. I had to decide what areas to colour or add detail to. I had the choice of:

• the audience
• the musicians
• the surroundings – there is much more I could have included, more portraits, a large gasolier in the center
• a combination – the decision I made

I moved from one side of the room to the other, quickly sketching some other musicians before moving back into ‘my space”. I was standing up against a bookshelf, leaning on a reading shelf. I am quite comfortable with the style of these quick sketches as these are what I usually do. The background takes a lot of time, however as I had the basics in place, I did not have to spend so much time on that.

There were four pianists. I captured two up close and one in the main sketch.

Beautiful music, beautiful surroundings, and I got to sketch it! A wonderful way to spend a lunch hour!

I have spent a lot of time drawing this building and its book. Some of those are available on greeting cards on my ETSY website!

I was asked by Marie (on Instagram) if could film my drawing autumn leaves.

Below are two videos, slowed down to as much as I know how to.

I am still learning about filming and editing. I am also very ‘aware’ that I am recording and conscious about how I draw. The result is that is probably not what I would do without being under this pressure I put on myself.

However, the technique and process are the same.

One day, I would love to record and give commentary along the way. This time I was mentally making notes along the way of things I wanted to tell you.

First step, collecting the wonderful autumn leaves yesterday along the street in my suburb in Melbourne. I choose them for their colour and size, so they would look good on the page. The leaves had already dried and changed overnight. By tomorrow they will probably all be crinkly and crisp. Still fun to sketch but the vibrancy will have gone from some of them.

I choose which of my collection to sketch and got out my pencils to have within reach. Sharpened pencils, clean water and I was right to go.

I love to draw and the first joy is to sketch them out on the page in a colour of the leaf. I don’t do an initial sketch with a HB pencil, just dive straight in. This colour becomes part of the leaf colour. With so many colours on these leaves, I could have chosen from a few colours.

I then add colour to some major areas of the leaf. With watercolour pencils (like watercolours ) you can’t put light colours on top of dark colours. If there are any areas that are going to be yellow, orange, or light green (in this case) they are put in early. The big blocks of darker colours are added.

You can see how I use the pigment on the page as a very small palette, dragging the colour across an area with the paintbrush, so that they fade to light tones.

That is one of the things that I teach in my Watercolour Pencil classes – discovering the range of colour and tones you can get from the one pencil.

The other thing to note is how the colour of a pencil can change once water is added. Sometimes, but not always, it can become very intense.

These are two great reasons to practice and play with your pencils. Have fun, explore and scribble on the page!

I move between the two leaves as this allows one to dry while I work (is that the right word? It is not work at all) on the other. Once an area is dry, I can add more layers. It will either be more of the same colour to make it darker, or another colour. For example, the Grass Green. As I add more to make some areas bright. I also added Pine Green ( a darker colour) to add specific detail or darker areas.

Here is the list of FaberCastell watercolour pencils that I used in the first video.

• Magenta
• Caput Mortuum
• Deep Red
• Orange Glaze
• Naples Yellow (this is not in my everyday sketchkit, but was out on the table, so I used it)
• Light Chrome Yellow
• Grass green
• Pine Green
• Burnt Umber

I made a second video adding the extra leaves to the page. This was with a few different colours.

The shadows were added at the end. They are Payne’s Grey.

The size of my Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook (13cm x 19cm) allows me to play work on small areas of a page. You may also notice how I like to use the sharpened pencil to add finer details.

The colour of these leaves did change as I sketched them and by the end of the day, they had changed shape and colour as they dried out. But that is the joy of sketching leaves, Each one is different and the colours are different on each one. There is no right and wrong.

I encourage you to have a play with your watercolour pencils and let me know if you have any questions.

My Travel Sketching with Watercolour Pencil classes are held in Melbourne.

Last week I posted the sketches and photos from my recent participation in International Urban Sketching Symposium in Auckland.

I have scanned the sketchbook that I completed (and the second one started) in Auckland.

I decided to go ahead and scan all the pages, even though I would like to spend more time on some of the pages, adding some further details and finishing them. But I am not sure if that will ever happen.

It was hard to select which sketches to include in this blog. It will be enough to give you an insight.

• my arrival and departure
• Some urban Sketching moments
• my own personal time and slower drawings in Auckland.

Melbourne to Auckland

in Auckland

Auckland Museum

Auckland life

Auckland Zoo

Auckland to Melbourne

All sketches will be added to Flickr, a photosharing website. All of my sketches go onto Flickr. It (and on my computer) is the place where I locate my own sketches. They all have tags and can be searched for. I also put various themes, holidays and projects in Albums.

I have so many more sketches from this holiday.