DO NOT MISS // Submit to Sketchbook Project & Get Profiled as a 3rd Ward Highlight

A stroll down N. 3rd St. in Williamsburg keeps getting better and better — thrift finds, Bavarian beer, incredible chocolate, second-hand books and more than 10,000 sketchbooks from all over the world. We recently reconnected with the Art House Co-op, a company based in Brooklyn that organizes the annual, worldwide Sketchbook Project, and found time to get lost in the stacks.

The Sketchbook Project is a traveling library of artists' journals from thousands of international contributors. Participants sign up online to receive a blank sketchbook, then fill it with artwork and mail it back. The results are cataloged in the Brooklyn Art Library's permanent collection, displayed online and exhibited at galleries from Austin to Australia.

The crew trucked the 2010 Sketchbook Project to 3rd Ward back when the Co-op was still based in Atlanta. Now we're practically neighbors and the Sketchbook Project has grown to include thousands of books from six continents. We hear that they're launching a campaign to entice Antarctica to join the current edition...

Now, 3rd Ward is partnering with the Sketchbook Project to create a special group of 3rd Ward contributors. Art House Co-op is offering a few free entries to jump-start the community. Just tweet @arthouse and @thirdward or email eli@arthousecoop.com a sketch of your latest project or future idea and tag it #3rdWardSketch. Winners will be profiled online and sent a 2012 Sketchbook Project entry package in the mail and the results will be exhibited across North America in 2012.

Happy sketching!