2x2: 2 Artists, 2 Sketchbooks -- Week 50

50!!! That seems like such a big number to me (even bigger than my birthday number!!). We've nearly completed a year of sketchbooking together and, in fact, the project has been going on for longer than that. Such a joy it's been.

This week was fun and it's been something I've been thinking about since I first flipped through Dana's sketchbook a year ago or so. What would I want to do for my half of the strawberry spread???

I came up with and discarded many ideas, but finally decided I wanted to sketch a strawberry vine and color only the flowers and berries.

I like the contrast of color and no color. Of orderly line up and wiggling vine. Of loose watercolor and controlled pen and marker.

Don't forget to check out Dana's blog for her take on this week's pages!


About the project:

2x2: 2 Artists, 2 Sketchbooks is a collaboration between artists Dana Barbieri and Anne Butera. Dana and Anne met in an online painting class. Although they have never met in person, they have become friends through regular visits to each others' blogs. It was through this connection that this project began. Wanting to move from friendship to collaboration, each spent two months filling one half of a sketchbook before mailing it off to the other. Dana worked on the lefthand pages and Anne on the right. Each will be responding to the other's work on the adjacent sketchbook pages over the coming year. Watch weekly as they reveal another page of their story.

About the artists:

Dana is an artist and crafter living in the foothills of the Catskill mountains two hours north of New York City with her husband, two children and little kitty. She is passionate about painting, knitting, crochet, color, pattern and design.

Anne is an artist, writer and crafter who finds inspiration and joy in the beauty of her garden and the magic of nature. Dissatisfied with and disheartened by the pace and lifestyle of the city, she and her husband (with their two rescued greyhounds and an aging Siamese) relocated to a small town in the beautiful Driftless region in southwest Wisconsin with the goal of living a slower, simpler, more intentional life.