Wahoo, Sketchbook Skool is on a roll! In "Storytelling" and "Beginnings", students are happily chatting about, uploading their work, and getting inspired by each other and the Fakulty. And today, "Seeing" is starting, so all around the world, people are working in their sketchbooks, sharing their art and growing an awesome community.
Speaking of the Sketchbook Skool Community:
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| Portrait of me, made by Lynn Cohen |
A lot of online friendships are made in Skool, and in September, one of the students, Lynn Cohen, was travelling to Europe with her husband Fred, and also visiting Amsterdam.
Lynn is one of the biggest fans of Sketchbook Skool, right from the beginning, and she is a very active person in the online community, by making a lot of art and encouraging others. For example: To fill the 'Gap' after the first kourse 'Beginnings' had ended, and before 'Seeing' started, she started portraying her klass mates and shared her drawings on Facebook. She made over a 100 portraits!
So, when Lynn announced her visit to Amsterdam, a bunch of Dutch Sketchbook Skool Students got very excited and wanted to meet her. To make that happen, they organized a sketchcrawl. Starting at 'Het Blauwe Theehuis', in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. The building is the subject in one of my video demos in my klass in 'Beginnings' of Sketchbook Skool, and it's also the place where Danny and I first met, before we founded Sketchbook Skool together.
There was a lot of sketching involved, and a lot of sketching each other too. We had dinner, and I was mostly chatting with everyone, but managed to throw some watercolors onto the paper, inspired by the pretty colors of the salad I ordered.
Lynn asked me how Danny and I met, and how Sketchbook Skool got started. So I told her the story of how Danny was in Amsterdam to speak at an event and how, on his blog, he said he wanted to meet Dutch sketchers. So, we arranged a meeting and had coffee. He wanted to pick my brain about my online art classes, and about teaching online. And of course I wanted to know everything about his plans after he made the leap to leave the corporate advertisement business.
Then, I shared an idea that had been in the back of my mind for over a year. While I was teaching my own classes, I realized they were limited to my own drawing skills, but there's so much more out there! Online, I found so many inspiring artists. I want to learn from them, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. So I wanted to bring those
artists together, so they could spread their knowledge and show their
skills. Should it be a seminar, a webinar, a book, an e-book, a course,
a workshop…? I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around it, what it
could look like, or even where to start.
So I asked Danny if he would like to collaborate and think about this
idea with me. What followed was a fabulous brainstorm on email back and forth, and many Skype calls, and before we knew it, we were signing contracts and bringing this project to life.
Lynn then asked: "so that must have changed your life?"
And I said: "Yes, it totally did. And Danny's too"
Lynn: "And ours too", gesturing at the group of people gathered around, sketching frantically in their sketchbooks.
"And mine too" said Fred, Lynn's husband,
who is not in Sketchbook Skool, but enjoys seeing his wife developing
such a wonderful art habit.
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| That's him, my dad |
Like Fred, my mom feels the same Joy. Because my dad (who is my number 1 fan, and who can't stop drawing ever since he took my first online class 'Just Draw It', when it ran for the first time 2 years ago) has developed such a happy habit! He meets new people online, goes on sketch crawls with class mates, and makes awesome art.
It's amazing, and I feel shivers down my spine (in a positive way), just thinking about how Sketchbook Skool is touching so many lives, and helping so many people develop their creative lives!
Labels: Sharing inspiration, Sketchbook Skool
