Thankyou sketchbook challenge!!

Lucky me!! I won a prize/giveaway on the sketchbook challenge for December. Some lovely Faber markers for journalling supplied by Blue Twig Studio. I'll be hanging out by the mailbox!!

If you don't know about the sketchbook challenge it's a blog and a flickr group, it's been going for a couple of years now. Anyone can join in and post as many or few pieces of work as they like on flickr. Every month there is a theme which you can use to inspire you or ignore!!! Often there are monthly prizes, tho' there aren't any for January, but the real prize is to be drawing and getting feedback from others who are part of the challenge.

The theme for January is the 'artists date' the idea from The Artists Way by Julia Cameron - of taking yourself out once a week for a couple of hours somewhere new or different, out of your routine, to re-charge your artistic batteries.

By coincidence, my first sketchbook work of the year is from one of my favourite artist dates - the verandah of my friend Alison, where I often go for a cup of tea and a chat, and more often than not we'll do some art too - a bit of drawing or sewing, I'll chisel a lino while she assembles a sculpture... You can see Alison's fabulous work here, along with the amazing work she does with kids as a primary school art teacher.