Happy 2012: "The Pillar of the World is Hope"

Best wishes for a fantastic, creative, prosperous New Year, filled with love, laughter and fun.  That's what I hope 2012 will bring for me and my family, too.

Since mid-December, I've been busy working on my entry for The Sketchbook Project, which is due at the end of the month.  Our Guild has several members participating, and we'll do the big reveal of our individual sketchbooks at our January 12th meeting.  My theme is "Travel with Me," and after much consideration, I decided to focus on what inspires my work; the colors, textures, patterns and masks of Africa.  Since I've never been (the closest I've gotten is the Rock of Gibraltar, where I saw the African coast in the distance across the bay), my sketchbook is full of mask images, African proverbs, my own work, and cut paper collage of patterns and textures inspired by various tribal groups.  I've incorporated many pages done with my Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate; one of my favorite tools for creating collage papers.  I have about 12 pages to go, and I'm finally enjoying the process (there was quite a long period during the journey where I questioned my decision to do this project at all!).  I almost don't want to let it go.  But, it will be exciting to know that my work will be seen by many others, and will become part of this permanent exhibition in Brooklyn Art Library, in New York.

Since the big reveal is next week, I'll show only a 'sneak peek' here:

The proverb for this page is:  "The pillar of the world is hope," from the Kanuri people of Nigeria; a lovely image for the beginning of the New Year, I think.

Happy 2012 to you and yours.