I decided this year to complete an entry for the Sketchbook Project. It began in 2006 in Atlanta, GA and moved to New York City in 2009. It is a crowd-sourced library that currently features 41,349 artists’ books contributed by creative people from 135+ countries. The collection of sketchbooks is on view to the public at the Brooklyn Art Library, the project’s storefront exhibition space in Brooklyn, NY.

I’ve been working on it since September and the deadline for submission is the end of March. Here is my cool new lamp I purchased to use when I doodle.

Participants of the project order blank sketchbooks, choose a theme, fill them up and connect their books online with search terms, an artist bio, and other unique content.

Since my name Vanessa means butterfly, I decided to doodle a fanciful butterfly on every page of my entry. While you have the option of rebinding your book with different paper, I opted for using the supplied sketchbook as it came. I limited my palette to Micron pens and one highlighter color per spread to keep bleed through to a minimum.

Here is the title page I created which uses ALL the highlighter colors I’m using throughout the book.

Did you know a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope??