Sketchbook Project

Our vision for the County Arts Sketchbook Project is to:

• Inspire creativity within our artistic community in an accessible, low-pressure way;
• Safely and meaningfully connect artists with one another and with our broader community; and
• Promote local artists by building and promoting a digital and physical collection of their artwork.

The project was launched in the summer of 2021 as a way to safely celebrate our 35th anniversary during the Covid-19 pandemic. From October 2021-January 2022, this page housed a successful digital exhibition of sketchbooks returned by participating members.

The physical sketchbooks remain in our permanent collection, and we can’t wait to share them with the public and continue growing the collection over time! This project was inspired by a similar initiative at the Brooklyn Art Library. 

Interested in joining the project? Email info@countyarts.ca for details.

Sincere thank you to all of the artists who have submitted sketchbooks so far! Sketchbooks are listed alphabetically by the artist’s last name. 

The Art Kitchen PEC

Artist Statement: This sketchbook was created as a group project by the members of the PEC Art Kitchen, a free, weekly arts meetup that has been happening in Picton for the past 4 years. We normally work independently on our own projects so it was great to work on a group project together. It also felt like it was time to construct a little archive and record of the group. We used our sketchbook to contribute our thoughts about the importance of community in art making but the theme of pandemic survival also came across throughout the pages. Thank you for allowing our group to contribute to this project and create a little historic record of our Art Kitchen.

Irene Götz – This is home.

Artist Statement: These were not going to be works that I could keep. This simple fact of the digital sketchbook project inspired me to set aside a bunch of habits around my work (to throw caution to the wind). A kind of unmooring, permission to play. 

For me, summer days are always in conflict with getting work done in the studio. Needing to fill pages in a finite amount of time compelled me to carry the sketchbook around for a few weeks and to work quickly (or not). Using mainly the mediums that give me comfort, watercolours and graphite, my subjects were objects near me and of the moment, but also about place—this place, and ideas about place. Ideas I’ve explored before but have drifted away from.

The project let me rediscover the shameless pleasure of less prescribed drawing and painting moments and the enjoyable fatalism of getting a piece down and then being done with it. No overthinking, no overworking, and no re-visiting. A kind of freedom. These were not my works to keep.

Having been part of this project reminds me of how fortunate I am to have rootedness, community, place, and privilege to practice my art.

Aidan Haley – A Resource for Studio Work

Stephanie Kressin – Letting Go!

Angela Jane Lavender – Keyhole

Artist Statement: The content of my sketchbook evolved organically. In the beginning I found myself searching for subject matter and grasping at random ideas, but towards the end of the sketchbook I had gravitated to a more refined style and a specific subject matter of beautiful women. I enjoyed playing with colour and physical features on each rendering. 

Throughout my sketchbook, I used pencil crayons, pens, pastels, markers and a little bit of collage. This experience reminded me how much I love mark making with drawing tools and building up those layers in an expressive way. My participation in the Sketchbook Project definitely inspired me to create more in my own Moleskine sketchbooks, and I’ve found that it’s the perfect middle step between coming up with an idea and painting it. Sketching offers the opportunity to test the waters for an upcoming painting and discover what the piece wants to be without the commitment.

Rhonda Nolan – Seeds, 2021

Artist Statement: I wanted the book to read as a coherent story, not just a collection of daily unrelated chronological entries… therefore the colour, textures, etc., that I was using in my daily work, guided each journal entry that I would randomly place throughout the book. As a designer, I wanted the book to be balanced… considering each page for its impact of interest… I had no predetermined thoughts or ideas of particular look or theme as to how the entries should be. This is the way I do my work… I feel my way through and act on my intuition… trusting in whatever comes up. Participation in this project gave me another opportunity to try out an alternate way to tell a story.

Tina Osborne – Whimsical Wanderings

Artist Statement: The sketchbook project prompted me to explore other possibilities in themes and mediums that I had an interest in but never had the time to explore or hadn’t used for awhile, such as line drawing, 3d drawing, markers and especially whimsical and silly animal sketches. As the project prompted some ideas for further paintings that I would not necessarily have thought of without participating, I plan to continue the process of having regular themed sketchbooks on the go. Thank you for the opportunity to participate!

Kyra Walker Pearson – Book One: Forty Day Sketch – Meadow, Field, Sky

Artist Statement: The beauty of the Meadow, Field, Sky in Prince Edward County inspired the subject of my Sketchbook Project content. As an artist, my main form of expression is writing and music; it was fun to add photography into the mix, then to extend further to include my husband’s brilliant paintings in ‘Book Two’. I am super grateful to have been invited by the Prince Edward County Arts Council to participate in this project. It offered me a dedicated vehicle of expression, a purposeful, methodical way of broadening, deepening my appreciation; creating a way for me to enhance my powers of observation and adoration for the ever-changing Meadow, Field, Sky.

Celia Sage – Doodlin’: What I Did This Summer

Artist Statement: I used this project to indulge in a lifelong practice of making drawings almost subconsciously and for myself alone, and which used to get me into trouble in my youth: doodling. It was a particularly unsettled and eventful summer for me, and having the “assignment” to put something in the book, whether mindless doodles or observations of people and places, gave a burnishing of pleasure to it all.

Larry Tayler – Closely Watched Toy Trains… or Healing Joy, and Life-Long Playing

Artist Statement: My Sketchbook Project (Closely Watched Toy Trains… or Healing, Joy, and Life-Long Playing) is rooted in both painful childhood experience and my joyful love of Tasmania. The painful childhood memory revolves around the theft of my childhood model trains when I was 11 years old. I’ve never gotten over it. The theft did, however, provide the seeds for my life-long passion (obsession?) for trains, both real ones and model ones. My joyful love of Tasmania comes from several visits my husband and I have made to Tasmania, especially the wondrous Huon Valley (southwest of Hobart). The weeks that Bill and I have spent there while winter raged in Canada are very special indeed. The upshot is that I am building the Huon Valley Railway in our basement, a combination of both my love of trains and my love of Tasmania. It is a total fiction, of course, so I’ve been able to design it in any way I choose! Creating the layout itself has been great fun. Even more fun was creating the fictional world behind each element of the layout. There is a coherent worldview at work in my sketchbook, even if it is fiction. My sketchbook, which I call a playbook, features written histories and photos of every element of the layout. I hope viewers find it to be both whimsical and engaging. Who knows – perhaps in a parallel universe the Huon Valley Railway actually exists! 

This project has given me the confidence to combine both writing and photography. Who knows what future projects will arise from my sketchbook? Thank you to the Prince Edward County Arts Council for the opportunity! 

M.P. Tully – Book Two: Forty Day Sketch – Meadow, Field, Sky

Artist Statement: Kyra brought up the idea and we decided to focus our sketchbook project (Book One and Two) on Meadow, Field, Sky. Together we chose the exact spot that Kyra would take the photo from when on her morning walk with our dogs, for 40 consecutive days.  Later, I would do quick watercolour paintings from her photos. I have been spending quite a bit of time on other paintings, so it was exciting and inspiring to rapidly run through my impressions of Kyra’s photos with my tiny little watercolour paintings. and to see the end results. To focus on something and the accumulation that occurs is a good life lesson for me and I will carry this practice on in other facets of my life.