Happy New Year! The Sketchbook Challenge begins!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 2011

Jill Berry is the very first theme-maker for the

The Sketchbook Challenge
which begins NOW

The theme for January is

HIGHLY PRIZED

These words are inspired by the work of Sister Corita Kent, a nun who made fabulous graphic serigraphs in the 1960s-1970s. Sister Corita was an artist, a social activist, and a grateful person who enthusiastically embraced the gift of each day. You can find out more about her here. Lucky me, my mother was an early fan of Sister Corita, and hung her artwork all over our house. This one is my favorite, it hangs in Mom's living room, where I am right now.

Anything that you consider "Highly Prized" is what you will sketch this month. It could be your dog, child, husband, favorite tea cup, your right hand, whatever you feel this way about. Sit up and take notice, and sketch sketch sketch. Here is my starter page, of my children as babies, books, berries, all "B" things that are highly prized to me.

GO FOR IT!!!!

Along the way, each of us, the artists and guides that have signed up to lead this pack for a year, will be blogging about what we are doing with the theme. I will be adding videos and tutorial on my blog as the month goes along. Now is your chance to learn, practice, appreciate and maybe start that one-day-a-week art habit you have been dreaming about.

January is a month of renewal, and fresh starts, named for Janus,
the Roman god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time.
(Thanks to my mom for this tidbit from her Latin class)

HIGHLY PRIZED

Create as many pages in your sketchbook related to this months theme as you like and post photos of them in the Sketchbook Challenge flickr group here or on your own blog if you have one.

How to be eligible for prize drawings:
In order to be eligible for one of this months prizes you must post at least one photo of a sketchbook page related to this months theme to the Sketchbook Challenge Flickr group and you MUST tag one of your photos with the code "jan246". IMPORTANT: PLEASE ONLY TAG ONE OF YOUR PHOTOS with this special code! It is not necessary to tag more than one and it will not increase your chances of winning prizes.

Photos of this months prizes can be found here and information on how to upload photos to flickr can be found here.

Winners will be chosen based on random draw on 1/31/11 and announced on the Sketchbook Challenge blog either on that day or on 2/1/11.

Get all the details on the sketchbook challenge here.

WELCOME TO 2011
The Year of the Sketchbook Challenge!