AUTUMN ART PROJECT AND CHALLENGE

HANDMADE SKETCHBOOK BY LENA AND ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON IRVING SKETCHBOOK

Many of my fellow bloggers sensed the return of autumn already in August with the fall of a few yellow leaves, chilly evenings and an indefinable but definite tang in the air. I felt none of that then, not even when the kids returned to school - because it started on August 21, for pete's sake.

But autumn showed up here exactly at the turn of the calendar page. Since September 1 it has been cool and rainy. Finally, my mind has turned to thoughts of fall. And in the fall an old woman's fancy turns toward . . . creativity!

I've run across a couple of fantastic art projects that I plan to take part in this fall, now that my round robin altered book is finished. I adore autumn and I love, love, love Halloween so I will be creating away like a mad woman - or witchy woman, as the case may be.

First, I learned that my blogging friend Lena (Mrs. Staggs) of A Happy Miscellany will be giving instructions for a Wednesday Sketchbook every week. The idea germinated when she found an old Washington Irving Sketchbook at an antique shop.

After she brought her treasure home, she writes, "I was thinking it would be fun for us all to make our own books, something along the lines of the Beatrix Potter Journal and those wonderful Fairyopolis books, that look a little bit like journals and sketchbooks and include all sorts of neat elements like envelopes that open and other fun things.

I was thinking something along the lines of sharing an element each week that you would then use to create a page for your book, maybe with the theme of Autumn, and then we could share links to each other's pages in my comment section the following week. Maybe we could each create our own character, and experience autumn through their eyes."

Not wanting to ruin the old Sketchbook, Lena opted to copy the cover and create her own book. But we are allowed to alter a book, and that's what I plan to do. I'm trying to decide if my own character will be a school girl in the 1910s or a young lady in the 1920s. Whichever incarnation she is, she is a nature lover. (Maybe her sketchbook can cover a 10-year period!)

Lena will give complete instructions for a phase of the sketchbook project in her blog every Wednesday. She started this week with instructions on how to create the cover, secure the pages and create an acorn bookmark. Click on the link below for complete details.

http://www.ahappymiscellany.typepad.com/

Now, on to the other project. While Lena's project is a work-at-your-own-pace, no-pressure kind of thing, this one is a contest with rules, a deadline and a prize!

See the spooky lady below? What can be done using her image and the word "Boo!" (or the idea behind the word)?


Quite a lot, as it turns out! My blogging friend Mary in Idaho (Back of the Moon) accepted an art challenge from another blogger and created this delightfully eerie scene:

"SARAH'S DANCE" BY MARY

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I guess because I copied the image from Mary's blog, you can't click on it to enlarge it, but you can enlarge it and read the text of "Sarah's Dance" by going to Mary's blog and clicking on the image there. You'll also learn about the rules of the challege:

http://backofthemoon-shopgirl.blogspot.com/

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By the way, I said this one is a contest, and I am definitely going to vote for Mary's art!

Entries will be posted September 8 here: http://mind-wideopen.blogspot.com/