This week’s featured pencil artist is Rebecca Stahr, a pencil artist and designer from Chicago, Illinois. Rebecca began studying art at a young age and went on to study advertising, graphic design and illustration at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. It was here that she honed her abilities as an illustrator and gained the skills needed to enter into the world of commercial art.

Rebecca’s portfolio contains everything from commissioned portraits and wildlife depictions, to still lifes and self-portrait studies. Her skill with a pencil is evident in all of her professional work, but it is what she does with a pencil in her free time that really caught our attention.

In addition to her professional website, Rebecca also maintains a sketchblog that showcases her most recent sketchbook sketches (we recently challenged our followers on Twitter to create a sketch a day for an entire month, so this type of thing is right up our alley). Just last month, Rebecca finished her submission to the 2012 Sketchbook Project, a touring art exhibit containing sketchbooks from artists around the world.

If you want to see more of Rebecca’s professional work, you can check out her website here. If you want to check out some of her daily sketches, you can check out her sketchblog here.

The challenge is still out there Studio 602ers. Who’s ready to take the daily sketch challenge?