About

About Sketchy Notions ®

Sketchy Notions is a woman-owned small business that specializes in watercolor illustrated stationery and paper goods. Every product starts with watercolors on paper and hand-lettering.

Our colorful and cheerful artwork is full of cats, plants and plenty of midcentury vibes (with a few dogs in the mix, too).

Our goal is create colorful stationery and paper goods to spread a little more analog cheer.

We are based in Los Angeles, California and carried in over 100 stores. 

 

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Our Mission

We aspire to create original artwork that spreads a little cheer, even on your gloomier days.

We promise to work hard to bring you unique products that capture our love of analog mediums, snail mail, cats, plants and the occasional dog.

We strive to be inclusive as possible, creating cards for everyone and all occasions.

We do our best to spread some good by donating and contributing to an assortment of social causes and fundraisers, as well as donating annually to Arts Outreach.

We hope that our products and love of all things analog will help you decorate your homes, bring cheer to your daily lives, and help build meaningful snail mail connections with your friends and family. 

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Meet the Artist

The TLDR: Chelsea Ward is an artist, author and art instructor who loves to watercolor. She's a sucker for a gin & tonic, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and will stop to pet every cat.

Chelsea, who holds a BFA in studio art from University of Texas at Austin, also travels to teach art workshops and hosts annual retreats in Italy with her other business, Wanderful Retreats.

She is also the author of four instructional art books: Modern Drawing, Your Year in Art, Modern Colored Pencil and Easy Drawing. 

Chelsea now lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and their two cats, Babka and Ginger. 

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Sketchy Notions started in 2009 as just a blog to share art. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Studio Art in 2010, Chelsea flew off to Italy for 2 years to fill sketchbooks and create while abroad.

In 2012, she returned to California and started turning her sketches and paintings into prints and greeting cards. Sketchy Notions has since grown to a collection of over 200 card designs for various occasions, as well as a variety of colorful and cheerful paper goods and products. 

Every Sketchy Notions product starts with original watercolors and hand-lettering before being edited, proofed, and packaged by Chelsea, often while watching horror movies, listening to podcasts or dancing around the studio to monthly playlists that she shares with newsletter subscribers (along with free monthly coloring pages).

Chelsea is never lonely in the studio with the kitterns Ginger and Babka usually snoozing on her lap or nearby. Ginger (on the left) helps with customer service and Babka assists with fulfillment.