A little brown book

Simple. Anonymous. But filled with treasures!

Way back in July last year, a group of friends decided to form a sketchbook swap. We’ve done similar projects in the past swapping handmade postcards and other similar artworks and it’s always worked beautifully well. We challenge and inspire one another and the end result is always hugely greater than the sum of its parts. We’ve swapped at broadly six week intervals - started out monthly but then slipped a bit. Maggie posted to me, I posted to Helen who posted to Paulene, who posted to Sue who completed the circle and posted back to Maggie. We each chose our own theme and added a couple of pages in our own style before sending to the next person. The books had done one complete round and were setting out on a second go when the Covid 19 hit and the Royal Mail went into a bit of a meltdown. Rather than let the art-filled sketchbooks sit in a depot somewhere, we decided to call them all home and call the project complete even though the books were not quite full.

Sadly, one of them has gone awol. Maggie’s sketchbook hasn’t come home again. Of course, there’s nothing we can do, but we hold out hope for its sudden reappearance and haven’t given up yet.

My theme was rhythm, as set out on the first page. I noted an interest in exploring the potential of multi-sensory and the page I kicked off with is the charcoal-y stripy one, which is formed of ridges to run a fingernail along. Helen, Sue, Paulene and Maggie followed along and interpreted the theme in their own way, as you’ll see…

Starting with the opening page then, here we go. Click on the picture to move to the next page.

What a treasure. How lovely to be able to cherish the work of friends and connect in this way.

Here’s hoping Maggie’s book comes home soon too!