New Project: Daily Sketches (Project Life)

 

It has been SO LONG since I’ve posted here — truth is, for a long time, I wasn’t making any art.  Working on the house takes up way more energy than I expected!  I finally have my studio nearly in order (still needs some work!) and I have a functional art space again.  In an effort to ease back into making art on a daily basis, I started a new project inspired by one of Teesha Moore’s videos in the Artstronauts Club.

[If you haven’t heard of the Arstronauts Club, you should check it out!  I think it was $45 for a year’s membership, and it’s been awesome!  It took me a few months to finally start watching all the videos, but not that I’m watching them, WOW! Such inspiration!]

Anyway, Teesha shared a video of a journal where she did daily sketches of what was going on in her life that day — It made me think of the Project Life binder that I started (barely) and never followed through on — I love the idea of Project Life…. but It’s really not for me!  I’ve tried scrapbooking, too, and eh, not my thing.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to make something to remind me of what’s going on in my life.  So I bought some binder inserts, a binder, and a lot of assorted Project Life cards on ebay … and never used them.

When I saw Teesha’s video, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head — I love drawing.  I love little sketches. I already have the binder and the inserts.  I decided to order cards cut to fit — I knew I could cut them myself, but would I ever get around to it?  Probably not.  I really liked the sample of Bristol cards that etsy seller, Shadowlance, sent me, but I ended up going with 110lb Cardstock from Prairie Dog Paper Company. Both companies are great, so be sure to check them out.  Shadowlance offers a great selection of ATC blanks — I ended up buying a few sets of those instead of the custom cards.

If you cut your own Project Life sized cards, you will want 3×4 and 4×6 inches cut 1/16 of an inch under — meaning just a little smaller than the listed sizes.  The full size won’t fit properly into the binders, so by cutting them a touch under, you will have the perfect fit.  I ended up paying $23 for 150 cards (100 small, 50 large).  Yes, I could have certainly paid a lot less cutting them myself — but I consider the time saved totally worth the cost!

The basic premise is a sketch every day — I number each one so that I remember what date it was.  I started on April 27th, because why not?  I didn’t do a month card for April, but I did one for May — I’ll do one for each new month from here on out.  Here are my first week’s worth of cards — it’s small enough to keep up with.  I missed one day, because we were traveling and I forgot, but I made it up the next day by doing two at once.  Each card takes maybe 5 minutes.  So it’s a fast project.  And the cards look awesome in the binder sleeve — I’ll post a picture in a  few days on the finished spread.

Here are the daily sketches for the past week: