The electronic sketch book of Thangka painting project is conceived as a way of using interactive video and computing technology to preserve and disseminate the craft of Tibetan Thangka painting — a 2000-year-old art form now threatened with deterioration. This paper first provides a description of the project and then examines the research questions about the relationship of electronic technology and design craft. Second, it illustrates the preliminary work towards the construction of a prototype electronic Thangka sketch book. The sketch book enables novice students of Thangka Painting to explore Thangka-related topics. Its multimedia database includes video records of finished Thangka paintings, compositional techniques, sample sketches, catalogues of painting elements, curatorial analyses, and scences of Tibetan cultural life. The sketch book's interface permits novice students to explore the database at their own pace, through direct interaction with diagrams and images of Thangka paintings.