Whoa. I love this… sketchbook? Ok, I guess I can’t call it a sketchbook, seeing how there are no sketches in it. Nope, instead of using pencil, New York based artist Nazmul Howlader has filled all of these pages with amazing cut paper creations. So, so beautiful, and insanely inspiring! Hmm, now there must be a pair of scissors around here somewhere…

{via Graphic Dirt}

There is nothing I love more than a sketchbook so thick with creative goodness, it can’t even be closed! My sketchbook is pretty fat, but thanks to Alison Worman, it’s about to get super-sized… beautiful fabrics, thread poking out the sides, layers of cut paper? Yes, yes, yes!

{via Book By It’s Cover}

Oh Jesse Draxler… how I’ve come to love you, and now you have truly found the way to my heart. Your sketchbooks. Sigh.

I do love a good sketchbook, and yesterday Jesse Draxler launched his newly redesigned {full of work lots of us have never seen before} web site, which just so happens to have three of his sketchbooks present and accounted for. These simple/fantastic collages are a few of my favourite pages. I think it’s the effortlessness that gets me the most. Yep, there’s that soul-crushing ache… hey, no one said love didn’t hurt a little bit.

These handmade pages by American artist Samantha Cotterill {aka mummysam} make me want to dust off the old sewing machine and roll out the bobbin thread… except that I haven’t even thought about sewing since I was forced to make a pair of Bermuda shorts in ninth grade Home Ec. Hm, maybe I’ll just covet these instead. Yes… much better plan.

{Now that I have you in a sewing kind of mood, come on over to sfgirlbybay and see the newest addition to ‘the house that jealousy built‘…}

If a drawing a day keeps the doctor away, then I’m pretty sure that Berlin based artist Tina Berning will never even get the sniffles! This is the third time I’ve written about her… and I didn’t even mean to! I was pulling some work together for another post and thought I’d quickly pop by her online “drawing a day” diary… and ended up being there for over an hour. Her work is amazing and always leaves me feeling inspired… with just a small case of “crushed-soul syndrome”. Hm, maybe I should give my doctor a quick call.

WAFA, aka We Are Fucking Awesome, aren’t joking. They really are. I’ve written about the founder, I’ve written about them as a collective, and I’ve written about several individual members {Jesse, Anthony, Brandi}. Hmm, some might say I’m becoming a bit of a WAFA groupie {I wonder if they have tshirts?!}… anywho, onto today’s fucking awesome collaboration. This project, titled Anthology, is a National Geographic magazine split up by two members of WAFA… one worked on the first half, the other worked on the second half. I want to be this awesome. Dad, do you still have that box of National Geographics in the basement? I may need them.

{I’m not sure which two artists actually worked on this piece. If you know, let me know… I need it for my fan scrapbook research purposes. Thank you.}

Step One: Find a mate {preferably with glasses similar to your own}

Step Two: Have a baby

Step Three: Worship said baby

Step Four: Try not to be really mad when that baby grows up, becomes an artist, and decides to use very old photos of you in his super cool sketchbook which he then puts on display for the whole world to see. Psst, Ben… your mom called, and she didn’t sound happy!

{Ben Owen,  is a recent graduate from the University of Kentucky. I should point out that the majority of his work [hand dyed silks and found paper collage] is much more abstract than the work I’ve shown here… but what can I say, I have a weak spot for sketchbooks filled with families from decades past!}

I really, really, really want the first painting in this post. I’d frame her lovingly in a beautiful, ornate, vintage gold frame…. ahh. Anyway, choosing a few favourites from the portfolio of American painter Elizabeth Bauman was quite a task. And then I found her sketchbook on Flickr and it got even harder to decide what to show… so I’ve shown a bit of both. The muted colour choices are lovely, and the facial expressions make you wonder what her subjects are thinking. I’m pretty sure the woman in the first painting is thinking that she’d really, really, really like to be hanging up on my living room wall in a beautiful, ornate, vintage gold frame.

{Thanks to Cathy at Habit of Art, another gem from Portland Oregon, for reminding me about Elizabeth’s work.}

Artsy, collectible postcards from around the globe? Nope. It’s a sketchbook full of hand-drawn Google street views by Lehel Kovács, an illustrator based in Budapest. Wouldn’t it be great if this is what Google street views actually looked like? My neighbourhood would appear so much cooler with a few loose pencil lines and a bunch of washy colour blocks. Well, I’m inspired to get my sketchbook out and, oh why not, maybe do a quick trip around the world. First stop… Baltimore.

{These six were my favourite, but there’s plenty more where this came from. Oh, and thanks to Words and Eggs for introducing me to this work. I love it!}

I have written about Martha Rich so many times… I’m sorry, but I can’t control myself! When I paint in my sketchbook, I think of her sketchbook. When I try new colour combos, I think of her colour combos. When I am in the mood for cake, I think of her cake. For several possible reasons, {hunger, low blood sugar levels, the need for inspiration in the form of thick pink icing} I spent the entire day thinking about Martha’s cakes ~ so here they are. Now you can think about them too. Mmmm, cake.

{Coincidentally enough, she has a new site called cakeandlobster.com… hm, maybe my next ‘I ♥ Martha Rich’ post will be about lobster?}