January at Skip Sketch Studio: Happy New Year✨
January is bursting (like fireworks) with so many wonderful things for this little studio. More art is being added by the week (our artist’s hands are cramping) with so much room to grow. However you stumbled upon our page, we are grateful to have you here, and hope you’ll poke around the studio to see the art exploding (fireworks!) into existence.
Here’s the scoop for what’s going on at Skip Sketch this January:
Wait, wasn’t this blog called something different?
Well, yes. This month, with a new year promising new beginnings, we want to tell you about a small but meaningful shift-one that doesn’t erase what came before, but names what has slowly becoming visible all along.
Our Oddbrush Odyessey
When we began the Daydream Journal in November, it was exactly what it needed to be:
A place for drifting thoughts
For half formed ideas
for the quiet, private space where daydreams turn into sketches, and sketches turn into art
At that time, Skip Sketch Studio was still finding it’s footing. We were focused on listening inward, so The Daydream Journal held the muses-those soft, whimsical sparks that arrive unannounced and demand to be created.
But something shifted over these past few months.
We wrote our first Lantern Letter, our monthly newsletter, and suddenly the studio went from inward thinking to connecting correspondence. We added lore to the site, and the Skip Sketch Studio world began to deepen-the cozy, the crazy, the dark, and the whimsical. We named our community, and in doing so, named ourselves too, as Oddbrushes.
The studio stopped feeling like a daydream, and began feeling like a lantern being lit through our paints and inks.
And when that happened, we realized the Daydream Journal no longer fully held the weight-or warmth-of what was unfolding. Not because it was wrong, but because we quickly outgrew it.
So we paused and listened, and asked ourselves (and perhaps a sentient printer as well) what this pocket of open letters and behind the scenes points of view should be.
Inkside the Studio
By Inklight came to us the way a lot of names materialize: hints, like a memory you know you forgot, and then epiphany as it all makes sense.
Ink is at the heart of Skip Sketch Studio. Ink that holds rough sketches. Ink that boldly defines. Ink as unerasable commitment. Ink as something that stains, that stays, that records the hand exactly as it moved-not as it wished it had.
Light has always been here too. The lanterns in our lore. The quiet glow we are cultivating for our Oddbrush community. The light that is illuminating our inks and paints, showcasing the flaws and victories each artwork stores.
Inklight is where those two meet.
The illuminated sketch. The visible process. The moment where meaning becomes readable on each canvas-not because it is perfect, but because it isn’t afraid of coming out of the dark.
This journal is written by that meeting point, from that very perspective: by the place where ink is celebrated and seen.
What This Means (and What It Doesn’t)
To be as clear and gentle as possible:
Nothing is being removed. Nothing is being lost.
The Daydream Journal isn’t being erased-it’s being folded inward, like a sketch tucked into your favorite book. The whimsy, the softness, the muses, and the darkness are all still there as part of the ink.
By Inklight simply gives us a wider table to gather around (which is good, because it is our dream to cultivate a large and thriving community of artists and Oddbrushes). This journal holds so much: studio reflections, process notes, lore launches, community spotlights, gentle updates, artist features, and behind the scenes. All written with the same slow, intentional, and inklit care.
So here’s what Skip Sketch Studio has to offer from By Inklight for January:
🎨 Featured Artist of the Month — Sandy
This January, we’re honored to shine a warm spotlight on Sandy, an artist whose work mixes cozy comfort with darkened themes like wet paint. Sandy describes her muse as a mythological firebird:
“In several dark places in my life, art has been a phoenix for me-bursting from the ashes of my muddled mind in a blazing inferno of creative obsession, a repeating cycle that offers moments of emotional clarity.”
For Sandy, January encompasses cozy rituals mixed with refreshing the mind and senses. Cinnamon honey tea, reading outside in a warm blanket, and crafting horror stories on the back porch with candlelight and family; cold, rushing river waters and crisp air, with fresh herbs and spices.
Learn more about Sandy and her art from the Artist Feature in the By Inklight Journal
Cinnamon Chickcharney
Cinnamon Chickcharney, the November print for the Mini Monster Menagerie, is a grumpy little creature with a fondness for stealing unattended cinnamon sticks.
🌙 A Little Whisper About What’s Coming…
At Skip Sketch, we have had so many ideas and inspirations that many of them are bouncing off the walls. That’s the case with the hinted at Odd Rush mentioned in Decembers daydream. The Odd Rush isn’t canceled but definitely put on hold-but we are still concocting chaotic and mischievous ways to get our Oddbrush Community together, so stay tuned!
December housed our very first free coloring page, and for January the free coloring page is from our featured artist Sandy, depicting a Lollylotl (Lollipop Axolotl) witch candy rain. The free download is on our community page, we’d love for you to check it out!
📦 January Society Posts — From Across the Studio Verse
The Skip Sketch Studio Verse is alive with stories of beginning this month — each world following its own strange little path through the falling sparks of the new year….
🐾 Mini Monster Menagerie
In the Menagerie, January started off with a bang-an amazing party with champagne and sparklers. But a small monster is twirled around a glass-a dragon koi eager to partake in the festivities.
Members who follow the mini monster trails will find a their own Champagne Coutl tucked inside their January Snail Mail 🐾
🦊 Curious Creatures Club
The magical ancient tree holds labyrinths of hallways, doors, stairs, and secrets. January’s curious creature is an enchanting black cat, staring at the moon. What secrets will this feline whisper to the tree-or to you?
Each January Snail Mail Post for the Curious Creatures Club includes their own enchanted black cat-one that has secrets just for you.🦊
🍄The Gnome Post
Gnome Postmaster Inkbeard Vell has documented yet another gnomish encounter in our world-on a crisp January night, with a full moon, a wizened gnome with a gray braided beard walks with a branch holding an owl, and the mysterious house in the distance seems attuned to his magic.
Each January Snail Mail Post for The Gnome Post will receive this mysterious gnome on this chilled night of magical delights.🍄
✨ What Makes a Society Post Special
Every month, each Society receives a lovingly curated envelope filled with theme-inspired treasures — art, tiny keepsakes, and surprises wrapped gently in tissue paper.
It’s a small ritual for $8/month… but one that feels like opening a story.
If you sign up before December 31, your adventure begins with January’s Society Post — a fresh start to a new year of magic.
🛍️ Shop Notes
January prints will become available à la carte in February.
December subscription pieces will be available in the shop later this month à la carte (but without all the fun exclusives for Snail Mail members)
A lovely way to catch up on any pieces you missed ✨
An Explosive Star to the New Year
This post marks the first official January entry of By Inklight, and we are so grateful that you are part of it.
If you’re reading this post and feeling uncertain-about your art, your pace, your place-you’re in good company.
This space exists because uncertainty is not a failure of creativity. It’s often the beginning of it.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for being an Oddbrush (but only if you’d like to be!). Thank you for seeing what others might pass by.
If you ever want to reach out we invite you to respond-leave a comment, write to us, or wander the studio. We’re happy to leave the lanterns on💜✨
Until next month,
The Skip Sketch Studio Team💜✨
