Class Description
Anything Goes!
A Mixed-Media Notebook Adventure
Instructors: Kara Kramer & Carla Sonheim
Class Dates: the Month of February 2026
4 Zoom Sessions, Creativity Prompts & Email Inspiration
Begins February 2, 2026 • $59
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Kara and I want to invite you to join us for a special live Zoom class!
Mixed-Media notebooks are a huge part of our creative practices… Kara is an accomplished children’s book illustrator and I try to make drawing fun through books and online classes. We are different in our styles but alike in our approaches and this class will be a fun collaboration between us, our notebooks and you!
Kara has long called them her “Anything Goes” notebooks—because it’s more than a traditional sketchbook… it’s drawing, writing, collaging, painting, printmaking and pretty much a place to try anything at all.
For both of us in our distinct ways, the pages are a place for us to move with materials in any way we feel drawn to IN THE MOMENT… At best, it’s more for how it feels rather than how it looks at the end (though admittedly it can be hard to separate the two!).
In this email-and-Zoom-based class, we are hoping to create a time and space to help you get in conversation with your OWN way of keeping a notebook, to begin to recognize your voice, your hand, your expression… and to explore and experiment with that, even pushing the boundaries in terms of not knowing what will happen!
In a nutshell:
• Emails. Each Monday, Wednesday & Friday during the month of February, you will receive an “inspiration-showering” email from us with artwork, creative prompts, quotes & links, maybe a short video, and/or mini discussions about art and creativity, keeping Anything Goes notebooks, and life.
• Zoom Sessions. Then, on Saturdays at 11amPT/2pmET, we will have 1.5-hour Zoom sessions where we work together on several more prompts, work on our notebooks in community, and have time to share at the end. (Four live Zoom sessions!)
• Class Forums. There will be two community forums (via FB & Padlet) where we will share our notebook pages and be inspired by artists from all over the world.
Please join us!
xoxo
Carla & Kara
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Nuts & Bolts
• The Zoom Session Video Recordings will be available in your class account within a day of the session. Once the video is up, you can access it on your own time schedule.
• No art experience necessary… really! Just jump right in.
• Thank you for being here and I hope you can join in!
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For a list of the supplies you will need, see the tab titled “Supplies” located just under the video screen above.
Supply List
Hi everyone! This class is called “Anything Goes” because it really is “anything goes” with the supplies, too!
So please just gather supplies you want to work with and want to try, including watercolors, inks, acrylic paints, markers, crayons, colored pencils… anything you have!
NOTEBOOKS:
As far as notebooks, both of us usually keep at least two going at the same time, one larger (8.5″x11″ or 9″x12″), and one smaller (6″x6″ or 5″x7″). We encourage you to use what you have on hand!
And it’s perfectly okay for you to just choose one notebook for this class.
But if you need a starting point, here are some links to the kinds Kara uses:
https://www.plazaart.com/art-alternatives-hardbound-sketchbook-11×14?utm_source=shopping_feed&utm_medium=shopping_ad&utm_campaign=shopping&gad_source=4&gad_campaignid=17419029976
https://www.dickblick.com/items/strathmore-500-series-mixed-media-art-journal-8-12-x-5-12-64-pages-hardbound/?clicktracking=true&wmcp=pla&wmcid=items&wmckw=13800-1085&country=us¤cy=usd&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Retail_Local%20Inventory%20Ads&utm_id=914859074&gad_source=4&gad_campaignid=914859074
https://www.dickblick.com/items/blick-hardbound-sketchbook-11-x-8-12/?clicktracking=true&wmcp=pla&wmcid=items&wmckw=11879-1085&country=us¤cy=usd&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Retail_Local%20Inventory%20Ads&utm_id=914859074&gad_source=4&gad_campaignid=914859074
And a link to Carla’s spiral-bound notebook she uses for writing and notes in ballpoint pen (and the occasional mixed media piece):
https://www.dickblick.com/items/canson-xl-mix-media-pad-10-x-7-portrait-60-sheets/
(For Carla’s main mixed-media notebook for this class, Carla is using a hand-sewn version made with watercolor paper that she made and started a few years ago… anything goes!)
About the Teachers
Kara Kramer
Kara Kramer is an artist and illustrator from Brooklyn, NY.
She writes:
“Something happens when I spend hours exploring and working with color, line, paper, markers, ink, paint, pencils. It is my favorite way to be. I can breathe. Completely. Calmly. Minutes dissolve. I’m fully immersed and focused on what my hands are simultaneously creating and discovering. The time spent making is what drives me to come back day after day. The art is a result of this time, a kind of memory, print, connection to some formless flow that continues to search and develop shape to hold it, have it, know it for a moment. The art shown on this sight and in my studio and in the sidelines waiting to be made is about the joy of creating.”
Kara studied illustration at Washington University as an undergraduate in St. Louis, Mo. A few years later she moved to New York and got an MFA at the School of Visual Arts. See more of her work at www.karakramer.com.
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Carla Sonheim
Carla Sonheim is a painter, illustrator, and creativity workshop instructor known for her fun and innovative projects and techniques designed to help adult students recover a more spontaneous, playful approach to creating.
Carla is the author of three instructional art books, including Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun; Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals: A Mixed-Media Workshop and The Art of Silliness: A Creativity Book for Everyone. In 2012 she co-authored Creative Photography Lab with her husband, Steve Sonheim. They live in Seattle, WA.
Nuts & Bolts
– Zoom Sessions will occur during all four Saturdays in January 2026 from 11am-12:30pm Pacific Time (2-3:30pm ET). If you need to miss the live session, there will be a recording available the next day.
– We will provide two class FORUMS for you to (optionally) share your artwork and enjoy and learn from the artwork of others. You may also email your teachers directly with questions or feedback.
– You will have forever access to the class videos and materials!
