Annie Leibovitz: Life through a Lens

For our photography movie this week, I chose "Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens," a 2007 biography.  Partly I chose it because her photographs have become so iconic and I wanted to know more about her, and partly because I know you've been learning about portrait photography and I thought it might be relevant to that.  I buy the "Hollywood" issue of Vanity Fair magazine each year because it always features a big spread of elaborately staged celebrity photographs by her  that I find fascinating.  Had you heard of her?  Is she someone who is known more in the US, I wonder?

I was struck that she is another photographer from San Francisco (I didn't know that, nor did I know that Rolling Stone magazine started in SF in the 1960's which of course makes perfect sense).  And I found it interesting to hear her describe her progression from someone who just picked up a camera and started taking "reportage" style photographs and evolved into a thoughtful, stylized portrait photographer.  I also liked seeing that she seemed so mobile with her camera -- sure, there were assistants and lights and reflectors, but it really seemed about her and her camera more than any complicated equipment.

The movie was intended to be about her life, of course, but I was wishing there were a bit more info about the photography itself.  She talked about how she met a friend, Bea somebody, who taught her about editing her photos and I wished she'd talked more about that process and what made her hone in on one over another.  I did like hearing her talk about how she developed the concept of setting up a photograph to visually illustrate more about the person and his/her work.  It seems obvious, now, but I suppose her doing that at the time was new and innovative.  And the depth of how she does it is always intriguing to me (which, I guess, is why I go out of my way to find that Vanity Fair issue each year.)   

As the film showed various photographs, I was struck by how many I recognized and how many are part of the instantly identifiable images of certain celebrities.  Whoopi Goldberg in the milk bath.  Demi Moore's pregnant nude magazine cover.  This one of Meryl Streep.

I was intrigued at how baldly she photographed her partner, Susan Sontag, and her father when they were ill and dying. The idea of photographing during such intimate, raw moments is one that feels uncomfortable to me -- too intrusive, too private, I suppose -- yet true and touching and important at the same time. I guess it's reflective of how a photographer sees and experiences everything through a camera. 

 At any rate, I was glad to have seen this and to learn more about this interesting woman. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

Reaction to Proof

Thumbs down.  That was my reaction.  I did not like this film.

I have to confess that I might have been affected by a childhood experience seeing "Wait Until Dark," in which some weird con men torment blind Audrey Hepburn in a creepy way, taking advantage of her blindness to terrorize her.  It seemed to me the ultimate cruelty.

So, with that same vulnerability at the heart of this movie, I was sort of creeped out from the beginning.  Martin, blind from birth, is convinced that everyone is lying to him, and he can never trust that people are telling him the truth.  So he takes photos, and asks strangers to describe the photos to him.  And then there was the creepy "housekeeper," tormenting him in her own weird way -- moving furniture purposely to trip him, preventing his dog from running to him in the park so Martin is uncertain about where the dog is (you won't be surprised to her that that really bothered me. Don't mess with the dog!).  Her weird obsession was just too ... weird.

There was also a sadness to both of those characters that I found troubling.

Russell Crowe - relaxed, grinning -- was initially a welcome breath of fresh air, which of course was his character's role.  He seemed normal, honest, without a strange agenda in the background -- until that moment in the park, when he's put in the middle of that weird housekeeper's game.  Ick.   I suppose the end was meant to be hopeful.  But I was just relieved the movie was over.

As for the photography angle -- well, I have to say that the whole premise of a guy who bases his reality on other people's descriptions of his photos is odd and sad.  And yes, it points up the blind man's vulnerability and his weird attempt to gain control and figure out who he can trust.

So I'd put this on the "don't bother" list.

Here's my pick for this coming week: Annie Leibovitz: Life through a Lens.  (Looks like it's on Youtube and Amazon instant streaming and even Itunes.)

Ansel Adams: A Documentary

My photography  movie pick for the week was a documentary about Ansel Adams made by PBS for its series The American Experience.  (You can see the entire documentary free on Youtube, here.) 

When I think about famous photographers, Ansel Adams is probably the name that pops into my head first.  And I suspect that's true for most people, at least for us Americans.  As the documentary describes, Ansel Adams has become known for capturing images that seem quintessentially American, in showing the vast space and grandeur of the American landscape.  I knew I'd enjoy seeing more of his photography through this film.

But I knew little about his life and was surprised to learn that he was born and lived for most of his life (when he wasn't in Yosemite) in San Francisco. I'm surprised that there isn't an Ansel Adams museum or some other such thing in SF -- I just went and looked on Google and it appears there isn't.  Odd, yes?  Apparently there are some of his prints at the SF Museum of Modern Art and the SFMOMA site has an interactive feature about his work on its site which I will go play with when I finish this entry.  Anyway.  I found it fascinating that he was a child during SF's 1906 earthquake -- and after being told that his nose veered sharply to the left after it was broken in a fall during the earthquake, did you find yourself looking at his nose in every picture of him as he aged?! I did.  I also had no idea that he was as obsessed with playing the piano as he was with photography, and that he'd aimed at becoming a concert pianist.  When someone  on the film described how he'd spend part of the year at his home in SF playing piano feverishly, then head up to Yosemite in spring and summer to take photographs, I thought: "Multipotentialite!"  Apparently we are not the only ones drawn to various different creative endeavors!

Of course, Adams is synonymous with Yosemite and I enjoyed learning about his discovery of Yosemite.  I've been to Yosemite a number of times and I've been to the small Ansel Adams gallery there.  So hearing him talk about Yosemite felt personal to me, as things do when you have your own personal connection.  But I found it fascinating to hear how Adams' goal was to create images of Yosemite that didn't just capture the detail of how things look -- he was trying to capture images that conveyed the way the place made him feel.  There it is again, that concept of a photograph conveying an emotion as well as an image that I've just started thinking about via the Vivian Maier film.  (This probably seems obvious to most photographers.  I think it's something I've always responded to in photographs I like, even when choosing ones I've taken myself -- but I never articulated it this way for myself.)

And that of course leads to the way Adams used his darkroom processing to affect the resulting photographic image when he printed it.  When people complain about using Photoshop or other digital processing devices to enhance images, I've often heard Ansel Adams' processing used as the justification -- "he did it, Photoshop is just another tool to do the same dark room processing."  And it's true.  I think that most people who take pictures casually think that Ansel Adams just had a particular knack for pointing his camera at something beautiful at the right moment, having no idea at how much adding filters and manipulating the tones of the image through dodging and burning were key to the images that resulted.  That one woman (his editor, I think) estimated that 40-50% of the work (or artistry) on the image was done in the dark room processing.

And that brings me back to the concept of processing a photograph to highlight what you want to say about an image.  I liked hearing Adams and the experts talk about how it was that he did that.  Making the sky darker to create drama, bringing out the lights and darks of the striations in the rock faces to illustrate strength, etc. It reminds me that the art of photography isn't just in knowing how to adjust the settings to get the depth of focus you want, or in composing the image to define the boundaries of the image.  It's also about using color and light and tones to allow the photograph to say what you want it to, so it illustrates the truth you were feeling at the moment you clicked the shutter. 

The film also made me appreciate the total freedom we have today with digital cameras.  I loved hearing Adams' son talk about his taking his famous Moonrise over Hernandez, NM photo.

 How he spotted the scene, pulled the car over, and was racing to get his camera set up while the light was still illuminating the town -- and those cemetery crosses -- so beautifully.  How he had one photographic plate left, so he had one chance to get the exposure right.  How, as one expert said, he had hours and hours and hours of experience setting up shots, knowing how to get the effects he wanted, so it wasn't luck -- it was his expertise and skill that allowed him to get this in one shot.  (So it reminded me of that question people ask artists a lot: How long did it take you to do this?  And the real answer is a lifetime of work.)

As I was watching this, I was imagining your seeing it and wondering what you'd think.  Can you identify a British photographer who is as famous to the UK as Adams is to the US?  Do Adams' photographs seem less relevant to you because the landscape is not a familiar one?  Is there work you know of (from any photographer) whose images capture the English landscape in such a definitive way?

I'll be interested to hear what you think of this.

And what's your pick for next week?

Born into Brothels

Helen's pick for #2 in our photography movie series was "Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids," a 2005 Academy Award winning documentary film from filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kaufman.  I have to confess, I was apprehensive at first, not appreciating what it would have to do with photography as I knew nothing about it before I started watching.  I hunted it down -- finally found it available (in full, for free!) on Youtube, here.

Documentary filmmaker Zana Briski went to photograph and film the prostitutes of Calcutta's red light district. But along the way, she realized that kids were everywhere living in the brothels.  She started a photography class, giving the kids cameras and teaching them how to use them, how to compose, what makes a good photograph.

And Helen, I have to say -- I loved this movie. In terms of photography, I loved that it said a lot about what photography can do.  How each person's view of his or her life is important.  How (as one kid says) a photo may show something hard to look at, but we have to look because it's true.  How holding a camera is empowering, and can lead to the realization that our view of the world is valuable.  The film work in this movie captured the chaos, the crowding, the noise, the dirt, the grim reality of life in that place, too.  So there was the added layer of movie cameras filming, and saying on a bigger level what the kids were saying with their own photos.

It was hard not to get attached to each of the kids -- some so lively and quick, some serious and worried, seeing the reality of their likely futures.  And so watching as "Zana Auntie" tries to find schools who will take them, tries to get one talented boy a passport so he can travel to another country as an award for his artistic ability -- was poignant and gripping.  I'd love to know where those children are today.  (Actually, I went and looked to see if there was any information.  There's an update from November, 2006 here and another from 2010 here.)

I found it hard to separate my emotional reaction to the content from the film and imagery -- which I guess is what good film-making and photography are all about, eh?

By the way, maybe you need to team up with your lawyer/photographer friends to do an exhibit at your friend Nisha's restaurant, to raise money for Kids with Cameras!

So, great pick. I don't think I'd have heard of this movie but for it being on the list and your picking it for us to watch!

Oh - and here's my pick for this coming week:  Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film (2002).  It's also available, in full, on Youtube here.

More thoughts about Vivian Maier

So I've been thinking about Vivian Maier's photographs since I watched the film on Sunday.  And here's what I've been thinking about it:

1.  Her photos conveyed emotion.  To be honest, I've never studied great photographers, I've done more reading on the techniques of taking photographs and processing them.  But I've been thinking about some of VM's photos, the images that have stayed with me -- and I've concluded that the reason they are staying with me is the way she's captured an emotion -laden moment.  Here are a few that have stayed in my mind:

2.  And that has made me think about my own photography.  I usually avoid photographing people.  In part it's a bit of reserve, feeling that it's somewhat intrusive to take someone's picture.  And I think it's related to my being essentially introverted -- my gut reaction is usually  that having people in a picture ruin it, I'd rather see the scene without people!  So it's far easier for me to see art in objects and scenes than in people.  I'm realizing that I need to think differently about it.  But my first impulse (in any art -- photography, drawing) is to avoid people.

3.  And then I started thinking about the photos of people I have taken -- other than family ones, I mean.  It's easiest for me to photograph kids.  Partly I think it's that kids are so expressive.  It's fun to watch them, and when they're little, their emotions flit across their faces so plainly.  Partly, too, they seem more accessible (in my world, anyway).  Some how having a child enter a scene I'm watching doesn't feel intrusive the way an adult entering would. (Hm.  Perhaps there is an issue for therapeutic exploration here!!)  And then they are usually so involved in their own moment, and they are often so oblivious to people around them, that I don't feel as if I'm intruding to shoot them.  I still am of course.  So is the intrusion I'm worried about my sense of invading their privacy, or my fear of being perceived as intrusive? By the way, you can see the few photos of people I've posted on Flickr here.   And, I'm pleased to realize, I think why I liked them enough process and post them is that they do have an emotional content to them. 

4.  And THAT makes me think about how (as someone commented in the movie) VM using a waist-held Rollieiflex probably made her street shooting easier.  It looks less intrusive and less obvious to shoot from the waist, versus the obvious "I'm taking your picture" act of bringing the camera up to one's face to point and shoot.  Does your camera have a viewing screen that can tilt out?  Mine does -- and that makes me think that perhaps we should each try using the camera as VM did, shooting from it hanging from our necks. 

Finding Vivian Maier

So, Helen -- what did you think about this movie?

[To our readers -- Helen and I both like experimenting with photography, and recently we came across an article online called "40 Movies About Photography Every Photographer Should See." We decided to watch the same movie within a short time period and compare our reactions.

I was up first to pick -- but the photography movie I most wanted to see wasn't even on the list!  The movie was "Finding Vivian Maier", from 2013.  We compared notes, found we could both access the movie, and decided it was up for our first joint movie venture.]

The movie tells the story of how a young man. John Maloof, bought a box full of negatives at an auction, and was so intrigued by the photographs that he begins searching into the life of the woman who took them. He buys up more of her negatives, and finds (and buys) her storage unit stuffed full with boxes.  She was Vivian Maier, a New York-born nanny and housekeeper who carried her Rollieiflex camera with her everywhere, taking photos with a truly remarkable eye.  So the story unfolds -- of an unassuming woman, her amazing photographs, the effect she had on the people around her.

So what did I think?

I thought it was absolutely fascinating.  The photographs were mesmerizing.  I've never been drawn to taking street portraits, but gosh, I was really struck by how strong hers were.  She captured strength and frailty and love and pathos and all sorts of emotions.  I was also struck by that aspect of art that always draws me in -- turning the most mundane moments of life into art.  It's a special sort of eye to do that, I think.

Were you as intrigued by the mystery aspect of the story as I was?  Finding out who she was -- and I loved hearing about how Maloof was so intrigued by so many photographs that were obviously from the same European village that he hunted and hunted and compared photographs until he found which village it was.

I found the descriptions of her from the families she worked for and lived with interesting too -- but mainly interesting in how different their views were of her.  It made me wonder whether she was different in each setting, or if they had her at different times in her life, or whether it reflected more about the people who described her than it did about her.

Mostly though, I came away feeling that it's important to just take pictures, and keep taking pictures.  In part to develop one's eye, but maybe more importantly to make onself see what's there... to see the art that's in front of us all the time.

I'm thinking one could learn a lot from studying her photographs.  Oh -- the film mentioned how Maloof posted the first photos of hers that he developed on Flickr -- and I've just gone to look.  There are a lot of her photos there.

Oh -- another thing I loved -- how Maloof laid out various collections on the floor and shot them from above -- her boxes. Her paper ephemera.  Her buttons and doodads.  I'm always drawn to seeing collections of things laid out so graphically like that. 

I'll be interested to hear what you think. Did it make you want to get out and take photos?

And now it's your turn to pick!

They're all just creative tools

When I woke up on Saturday morning, the dream from which I was emerging involved being with you at some sort of garden center where we had been walking around looking at plants and flowers, and we were heading into a cafe for tea and cake.  (I woke up before we even got to the cake counter, gosh darn it!)  But as I was putting on my robe and heading downstairs, I was wondering whether your Saturday morning had been spent at a cafe/garden center, and your Saturday was psychically drifting into my sleeping subconscious.  I would not be surprised, the way we can overlap each other's thoughts so eerily sometimes.

So later, when I'd made coffee and was cruising through my Feedly blog pages, I was bemused to see your Saturday cafe post.  So perhaps there was a psychic overlap.  At any rate, your Saturday blogging spot looked very charming to me from the photos -- although those chairs do look awfully  stern and hard compared to the saggy softness of the Cedar Farm sofas!

I am delighted that using a different brush has changed your painting experience!  I went and looked at the Rafael Soft Aqua brushes -- I do not have any but now I must try one or two!.  Your colors do look much brighter and I"m glad you're getting the look you want, not to mention the satisfying feel of the brush you like!  I often really like how something looks (color and value wise) when it's just painted and still damp ... and then, of course, it pales as it dries and I don't like it as well.  I know that learning to anticipate how it will look dry as you paint wet is part of the watercolor learning curve.  And learning how to go back in and add more depth with more darks is, too.  Seems like the last stages of anything I sketch are always about MORE DARK.  MORE DARK.  STILL MORE DARK.  And then I tip over into ACK, MUDDY MESS.  It's a fine line, that last stopping point.

When I was in Washington two weeks ago, I did a bit of sketching and definitely struggled a bit with painting a lot of beigey-brown shells, and getting the darks right.

Anyway.  I'm going to try some of those brushes. (By the way, you will laugh at this.  I just paused to go look again at the brushes, I put a few in the online shopping cart and got  a message:  "Congratulations!  You are just $86.14 away from free shipping on your order!"  I stopped myself for shopping for $87 worth of additional art supplies which I no doubt could have found quite easily.)  I know a lot of people love the waterbrushes, and I carry a few for the total convenience of the water-with-you-at-all-times aspect... But I don't like the color results I get with them, they feel far less predictable to me.

And I love your bulb recipe page!  Very clever and charming!  And bright!

Congratulations on the new camera!  I have (now, because of you) read about the new mirrorless cameras and they sound great -- capable of great photos AND light and compact.  You asked about how I decide to sketch or photograph.  For me, it's about my mood, and how much time I have.  I view them as very different activities, actually. 

Taking pictures, for me, is more about capturing something in the moment.  It's a sort of fast thing.  It's not that I don't take time, or think about what I'm doing.  And really, it's the seeing before taking the photo that is the part that takes time.  I'm consciously choosing what I want to photograph, and thinking about different angles or light or what settings would give me the result I want.  I do snap a LOT of pictures -- I am not inclined to stand and ponder and fiddle with settings and then take 2 pictures.  (I went on a photo walk with someone like that once.  I think I took 50 photos to each of his.)  Anyway. And while traveling, I use my camera as a way of capturing images as I go.  For me, it still makes me look at things differently, notice color and pattern and light and value in a more specific way.  But I can snap a bunch of photos and keep going.

Sketching is a whole different thing to me, although there are overlaps in the seeing and thinking.  I'm still noticing color and shape and pattern and such.  But when I set out to sketch, I know that I will want to sit somewhere for a bit of time and just relax and draw and paint.  I'm looking to find ONE thing or scene that grabs me and makes me want to sit and explore it through drawing and painting.  It feels much more leisurely, and so far anyway, I don't like having to sketch faster than I usually do, or hurry to sketch that scene over there, and then that building down there, and then that clump of people over that way....  I know there are people who love recording things that way, and their fast sketching is a shorthand communication for them.  Maybe it's because I've not learned that approach and haven't tried it much, but for me the enjoyment of sketching has a lot to do with the sense of peace and meditation as I sit and really study what I'm drawing, being in one place and absorbing the ambient sounds and smells as I draw.

So, choosing to sketch or photograph?  It depends on my mood and what I feel like doing, plus it depends on how much time I have.  When I traveled with my sister, some days we set out knowing we planned to pick somewhere and then sit and sketch. And other days, we knew ahead of time that we were going to go and walk around and take pictures, and then come home and sketch, mostly because it was so dang hot and we wanted to be back inside in the worst heat of the day.

You asked if I ever do both sketching and photographing in relation to the same subject.  And at first I thought that no, I don't usually -- unless I sit down to sketch somewhere out in the world, and take a few photos of the sketch subject in case I run out of time or someone parks smack in front of my subject which seems to happen ALL THE TIME.  But then I remembered that when my sister and I were in Yosemite earlier this summer, I did do both.  There is so much gorgeousness to see there, and we only had a day there.   So we both took tons of photos.  Here's one, for example:

(You can see more here.)  But we wanted to just sit and BE there, too, so we planned some time for sitting and sketching, too.

 And now that I think of it, we did the same thing in the little gold rush town of Columbia on that same trip.  We walked and took a lot of photos.

 (More of Columbia here, btw).  But then we also made a point (well, I insisted!) to just sit and sketch, too.

Oh look, I took a photo of this very scene before I started painting.

So it turns out that I did both.  And they felt like totally different activities to me. 

What do you think?  How do you anticipate using your camera versus sketching?

By the way, I've heard some longtime sketchers say things that struck me as rather disparaging of the process of photography, and I've always disagreed.  Things like photography being like mindlessly xeroxing while sketching is thoughtful, individual interpretation, that sort of distinction.  And I think it's absolutely wrong and reflective of ignorance about the artistic process that can be involved in photography.  So I know that in the sketching world, some people express disdain for people who use cameras or choose to photograph a travel experience rather than sketch it.  I think that's just silly.  Both are ways of seeing and capturing and interacting with the world in front of you in a creative way.

 I put that photo up top, by the way, because you can see the reflection of me taking the picture in the glass.  A subtle selfie!  Seemed appropriate for this post.

By the way, you know that by the time this posts I will be on my way to a quilt retreat.  In the past I've tried to do a sketch each day, which has usually involved wandering outside and spending an hour or so drawing and painting. I'll bring my camera and sketching supplies as usual, but this time I suspect I'll take a lot more photos and maybe not do too much sketching, as I have a lot of sewing I want to get done.  I'll let you know!

Also, I'm glad that you posted. I've missed our TT4T postings!

Seeing fast and slow

 Helen,

This morning I did this sketch for my lesson in Sketchbook Skool.  The semester's theme is "seeing," and the lesson was to sketch something "fast and slow": fast being a first, fast, loose painting of color to get a shape, and slow being (after the paint dried) a slowly-drawn, detailed line drawing over the top of the colored shapes.  It's a clever assignment, I think, because it does make one think about the different ways of seeing -- a quick glance, a fast impression of color and shape  versus a careful study of details.  And it was fun, too.  It reminds me that wonky is not just good, but darn fun.  I want to do more of this.  Have you tried it yet?

As I was doing this, I was thinking how the fast glance vs careful study of details applies to life, too.  Emerging from a 20 year marriage, I am often struck now at how things seem so different to me.  When I was living it day to day, caught up in the whirlwind of work and child-rearing and keeping clean laundry in the cupboards and making 3 meals a day for everyone, I think my sense of what I was doing was like that fast glancing. Sure, I was in the middle of it, and I tried to stay in the moment, especially with my daughter, and I tried to notice and appreciate the details of every day.  (I think that's why I got so immersed in photography years ago.  It slowed me down and made me stop and look at things.)  I saw a lot, I know.  But I suppose it's like what you see from driving somewhere in a car -- you  are moving along at a good steady clip, you're appreciating the scenery, but you can't absorb things really closely.  You're just moving too fast. 

But now, as you know, I've found myself looking at certain things in a different way.  How my husband and I related to each other, how we communicated, how we handled important or wonderful or hard things, how we challenged each other, or ignored things that were hard... How figuring out our daughter's special needs and how best to help her with things acted, in some ways, as blinders, too -- I know I became so focused on her and parenting and schooling that I just didn't have the capacity to look beyond that.  I have come to understand that I was consciously looking past an awful lot.  And I know, now, that that is a very common reaction to living with an alcoholic, and that embracing denial is not just a coping mechanism but in some situations a survival strategy.

When I was drawing this clock -- which I've had for about 25 years and which sat in my office at work for the whole time I was there so I glanced at it a zillion times a day -- I noticed for the first time that the roman numeral 4 on the clock face is represented as "IIII" instead of "IV."  For all the time I've had this clock and looked at it, I'd never noticed that before.


So it's kind of perfect for me to be thinking about "seeing" right now, as that is what I am doing in a new way on a whole lot of levels.  It amazes me how art processes can parallel life lessons.

And that's what I'm wondering -- have you had the experience of some art process or lesson paralleling something non-art related in your life?  Does reflecting on art or making art cause you to think in new or related ways on other aspects of your life?

Questions Answered

     I love seeing how your sketching is developing.  I know you are sorting through your angst and I'm confident that you will figure how, or whether, sketching fits into where you want your creative life to go.  I've been plugging away at the Every Day in May sketching challenge, although I do it loosely.  For me, my goal is to sketch SOMEthing every day, whether or not it's on the official EDIM list, and I don't worry about whether I am doing that day's challenge on that same day.  Here is the page spread for #15 (cookie) and #16 (stapler).  Do you get Girl Scout cookies in the UK, and have you ever had a Samoa?  They have a shortbread base, then a layer of caramel and coconut, then it's all coated in chocolate on the bottom.  Delicious!

 I made a small journal (using Cathy Johnson's maze book structure which she shows here) and it has just enough pages for all of May as long as I remember to put two things on one page at some point!  Each page is about 5x7 inches.

I never did answer the questions you asked in your last post, so I thought I would do that, finally! 

Has sketching made a difference to anything you do?
    Yes, actually.  In part it’s seeing things differently.  Noticing details, appreciating the beauty in simple things.  Nowadays, as the result of having discovered how much I like sketching buildings, I notice architectural detail more than I ever did.  I found that photography has had this effect on me, as well, but with sketching my sense of detail and really looking closely at things has changed even more.  I think I’ve come to appreciate funky or run down things more, too.  Something that can look junky and dreadful in person can actually be very fun to sketch, I have found. 

        And it has made its way into my quilting a bit. You might remember that I used sketches for one of the last 12x12 quilts on the theme Maverick:

 
 A while ago I had one of my sketches printed onto fabric via Spoonflower and I intend to turn that into a quilt.  Soon.  I have to finish a few other things in the work first! 

    Mostly, I think it has changed my level of confidence in myself as an artist.  I’ve told you how I always viewed my sister as “the one who could draw” which, be definition, meant that I was the one who couldn’t.  It has been such a pleasurable experience for me to discover that I can learn it and improve at it. 

I think you said to me once how when you see another person's messy, quick, gestural sketches you love them but when you do that yourself you hate them. Do you still feel like that? I certainly do.

    Yep.  And what’s more, I think that’s quite common. What seems charming and full of personality in someone else’s work seems distorted and wrong in our own.  But I think I’ve told you before that I try to remember to “embrace the wonky” and it has become a little mantra to myself.  I frequently find that I can do a sketch and feel dissatisfied, and then I’ll see it after a few days later and like it better.  And I ask myself how I’d feel if I saw that in someone else’s sketchbook, and almost always I realize I’d like it a lot.

     Here was my breakthrough on that.  In one of Jane LaFazio's classes (mixed media I think it was) she had us prepare page background by painting and stencilling a bunch of pages at one time.  I found it kind of pointless, preparing a page when I didn't know what I was going to do on it. One evening, I was in the mood to sketch, but just wanted to hang out in front of the tv.  So I opened my sketchbook to one of the pages I'd prepared, figuring I didn't like it already so I couldn't ruin it, and I figured a fast contour drawing would be fun. I did this, and when I was done, I loved it, wonkiness and all.

     In my Urban Sketching outings, I’ve made a friend named Pip who has (to my eye) a gorgeous style with very delicate and amazing watercolor skills.  I always see what she does and my heart sinks a bit and I wish I could have done something JUST LIKE HERS.  But she tells me she feels exactly the same way when she looks at my sketches.  So we make a good sketching pair, I guess .  But it’s a funny example of how so many artists judge themselves far more harshly than they judge others.

How I got into sketching–

    Some years ago (hmm, before we adopted Miss C so maybe around 1994ish) when I lived in New Hampshire, I was talked into taking a watercolor painting class with a friend of mind named Judy.  I mainly wanted to see her more often, and she persuaded me that the class was for beginners and I’d like it.  And I did, although many people in the class were serious painters who used it as workshop time to paint work they would then sell.  But it was the first sense I had that I could learn to draw.  I remember in the very first class, we were to draw and then paint using one color a chinese food takeout carton.  I was struggling with perspective, and the teacher came over and with one pencil stroke, changed ONE line and the whole thing sort of popped into place.  It amazed me and made me realized I’d not been that far off.  So I did a few sessions of that class, and started learning a bit about watercolor and paper and paints.

    But then Caroline arrived and life changed and I didn’t do it any longer.  But a few years back, I knew someone who had taken a class from Jane LaFazio.  And I so liked the sketchbook style of painting – not aiming for a formal, perfectly glazed watercolor effect, but just doing wonky drawings and using paint to add color, and I figured I’d give it a try.  And away I went.  Since then, I’ve taken a bunch of online classes that have been helpful – from Jane LaFazio, Val Webb, Sandy Holtzman, Laure Ferlita, Cathy Johnson... but really, I think mostly those have been most useful because they make me keep sketching and painting. 

How important is being part of a sketching group to me in whether I keep going?

    It’s not that important actually.  But I think that might be because my sister is always sketching in some fashion or another, and she inspires me... and now I have other friends who are pretty regular sketchers too.  I think I get inspired seeing other sketchers’ work, on Facebook and Flickr, and the various Urban Sketcher blogs.  And I enjoy posting my work on Flickr and Facebook at times because positive reactions are encouraging.  I really do like having others to sketch with, and to talk about it with, and to go someplace with and then see what they choose to sketch in the same location, that sort of thing.  But really, the biggest satisfaction I get from sketching has to do with the zen-like, meditative feeling I get when I’m sketching.  It brings me to the present moment and makes me look closely at something and every day life stuff just evaporates for a little bit.  It’s THAT feeling that keeps me sketching, and so I think I’d keep sketching even if I weren’t connected up with other sketchers. 

Did I do art stuff when I worked in an office full time?

    Yes, I did, mostly.  Maybe more crafty than actual art, but I always needed to do creative stuff to balance out the lawyerly side of life.   When I first started working as a lawyer, I was sewing clothes a lot.  I actually made a lot of my suits because as a new lawyer I couldn’t afford the tailored clothes I needed, and I have long arms and so it was hard to find blouses and jackets with the sleeves long enough!  So I made my own.  (I will always remember one of the first hearings I went to on my own, which ended up in front of one of the few (at that time) female judges.  And she was wildly complimentary about my suit, a gorgeous winter white wool suit if I do say so myself, and I didn’t want to say that I’d made it because I thought that would sound too girly and unlawyer-like! )

    And I grew up in a household where crafty stuff was encouraged, so I did needlework all through law school, and I did a whole lot of knitting when I was first working as a lawyer – that was how I first learned of Kaffe Fassett and even undertook one of his really complicated patterned sweaters. But as work got busier, I spent less time at it.  I’ve told you about the period of time when I was feeling burnt out about trying medical malpractice cases, and I started having some chronic fatigue health issues, and ended up taking a sabbatical from practice to address my health and sort out my career goals.  During that time, I remember the first thing (and only thing in a long while) that got me excited was discovering using fimo clay to make jewelry.  I became obsessed with just mixing clay colors!  And I remember thinking that I was definitely recovering if something creative was getting me excited again.  I felt that part of my sliding down into chronic fatigue had to do with the lack of balance in my life – work had far overtaken creative activities – and I concluded that doing creative things is necessary to my health on a lot of levels. 

    But even with all of that, I do understand how very hard it is to have time to work full time and manage a house and spend time with family members and then explore all of the wonderful creative things there are out there, too.  So I can appreciate your frustration with trying to find yet another 20-minutes-a-day for sketching when your days are jam-packed as it is.

   At present, I don't work full-time outside of the house, but at times I have long days of work at my desk, and on others I have a lot of ferrying of Miss C to appointments and events.  So my goal is to try to do something creative everyday.  Maybe sketching, maybe sewing -- and some days I figure that watching videos or looking at inspiration online via videos and flickr is all I have time or energy for.  But that's okay.  I feel happier when I relax about it.

  But now it is dinnertime, and the dog is staring at my intently to tell me it is past time for hers, so I will post this.  I look forward to see where you are going with all of this.   

More Thoughts on Sketching

We seem to have drifted back to our ongoing habit of mixing our creative talk with our daily life emails, and because I've missed our Tea and Talk get-togethers, I thought I'd sit down at the virtual cafe (I'm picturing Boc Boc) and order us both some tea and cake, and start a conversation.  Would you like the Victoria Sponge, or the chocolate cake?  Or shall we split them and each have some of both?

Actually, that's wrong.  You started the conversation on your blog with your post "How Sketchbook Skool Peddles Conformity".  I've been thinking about your post and wanting to reply so I thought I'd do so here.

What really hit me when I read your thoughts about Sketchbook Skool is how totally different they are from mine.  Which is not to say I disagree, necessarily -- I just would never in a million years have looked at it that way, and your feelings about it are so different than my own.  Once again, you have really made me stop and think because your view of it is so different from mine.

You said that  "I believe the real product Danny and Koosje are selling ... is the enabling of the social habit of conformity....Suddenly its ‘normal ‘ to sketch. Everyone’s doing it. We don’t want to be left out and we are welcomed when we share."

See? Right there.  It is fascinating to me that you see the Sketchbook Skool experience in terms of conformity.  We've discussed before how you've been uncertain about the value of sketching to you.  You didn't see the point of my sketching that lemon, for example, and couldn't see why you'd want to do that sort of thing, but that you were starting to understand the appeal of travel sketching.   At the time, it seemed to me that you didn't appreciate or enjoy sketching for its own sake.  Has the Sketchbook Skool experience changed that for you?

On your blog, you've talked about " 'informational conformity,' where we change our behaviour to  be ‘correct’. I think this is what is sucking me in so much to the Skool Facebook group. Of course, having subscribed, I could simply watch the videos, be inspired and  then do nothing... But when your News Feed is full of people showing their homework and telling their stories of sketching trips, it feels like you ‘ought’ to join in if you don’t want to be the class slacker wasting her money and, better, it feels fun to join in. Welcoming and social. Then, because you see demos from a number of teachers, you have a range of ‘correct’ behaviours and can choose which one suits your style and use it as a template for exploration."

Again this is fascinating, because this is not what the Sketchbook Skool experience has been about to me at all.  Do you feel that the Sketchbook Skool environment -- knowing you are part of a group of people who are also starting to sketch, being able to show others your work and get their compliments -- makes your participation permissible?  Or "correct" somehow?   Do you think that if it had turned out that only 5 people signed up for Sketchbook Skool, and no one was posting their sketches or comments, you would be less inclined to do the sketching and try the methods the teachers' videos demonstrate?  I read your blog post as describing how the group dynamic is what motivates you, especially in giving you permission to do something that you fear is ultimately impractical to you, and in giving you a vehicle for accountability.  If the Sketchbook Skool framework were not there (say, in between this session and the next), will you keep sketching? Or is your interest in it dependent on how active the Sketchbook Skool facebook page continues to be?  Or has the group presence motivated you, but that you are now developing sketching for its own sake?

I'm asking these questions with real interest.  I have seen your sketching change so much over recent months so that it's clear to me you are getting better at it --  but I have not heard you talk about your enjoying the process of it.

Which brings us back to that same distinction I keep thinking about, that "process" versus "result" thing.  Maybe it's not that simplistic, but your blog post makes me think of it in a new light because the concept of "conformity" just doesn't apply to the role Sketchbook Skool has played for me.  If anything, I tend to want to head in the opposite direction when people start jumping on a bandwagon.  I guess I'm a lot more comfortable with non-conformity!  You know that I've been sketching now for a number of years, and that I've really enjoyed finding friends to sketch with and going on sketching outings with them.  But for me, that is about the sharing of the process, being with others who share my enthusiasm and who inspire me, and having a back-and-forth exchange of ideas and work.  It's not that I need to have others to sketch with because otherwise I'd feel uncomfortable on my own. It's not about the presence of others giving me permission to do something I know I enjoy.  Partly it's that having someone along to chat with makes the experience more fun, and can give me new insights, and connect me with new people.  It's sharing versus conformity, to me.

Mainly, I just like the sketching.  So I'm happy to do it home alone, or out in the world on my own, and I don't share a lot of what I sketch, just because...well, because it's the doing it that's important to me.  I have a small group of sketcher friends online and I share most stuff with them, because we all started learning together and have become friends and seem to take the same view of the process. In that group, I think our sketches have become short-hand ways of talking about our experiences. We are sharing our lives through our sketches, so posting sketches to them isn't about "look what I did," so much as it's about "here's what was going on in my life at that moment."

For me, Sketchbook Skool is a vehicle for me to get exposed to other artists and other ways of doing things, so that I can explore my own individual expression.  It's the inspiration and education that excite me.  I love seeing other artists show their sketchbook pages and hearing them talk about them.  I love hearing each artist talk about the role that sketching has in his or her life.  So, for me, it makes no difference whether I am the only one watching, or others are too -- save that it's fun to share reactions and see others' responses to the art assignments.  (I have loved, loved, loved seeing everyone's drawings of their kitchens, both for the drawing and for the glimpses into people's ordinary spaces.  It's like art and a reality tv show.  :-)  )

At any rate, I have really been struck by your viewing the experience as one about artists "embracing conformity," while for me it is pretty much the opposite -- I see it as being about how delightfully  individual the sketching experience is.  

This feels a bit like you are feeling the elephant's trunk and I am feeling the elephant's ear so we are touching the same animal and having totally different experiences. 

Which is why I love our conversations.  Your end of the elephant always surprises me.

love,
Diane

 

The No-Travel Journal

Make your own free photo slideshow You asked how I am doing with making pages for the journal inspired by Mary Ann Moss's "Ticket to Venice" class.   The short answer is GREAT.  I am having a  grand time assembling pages, and I have loved watching her videos.  Now that I am on my own, I was quite inspired to see Mary Ann's travel plan -- taking a trip alone, walking and exploring and photographing by day, journaling by night.  It looks quite feasible and very, very fun.   But as I do not have any big travel on the agenda soon, I decided to take a more general approach to the journal.  I could not resist also watching the videos for Mary Ann's "Remains of the Day" class which involves a similar journal but using more daily ephemera and piecing the bits together without an overall theme.   So, as I've said (and as you can see in the little slide show of pages above) I've really been having fun mixing paper scraps and random items.  But I would find it hard to make a travel journal for a specific destination.  I think I would be inclined, while traveling, to gather up lots of papers, take lots of pictures, keep notes or journaling bits on separate cards or in the Midori Travel Journal, and then assemble it all when I get back home.  But then again, what you are doing looks quite perfect for your Italy trips -- just means leaving a lot more blank pages for insertion of photos and souvenir bits and journaling.  But then making the book doesn't seem like it'd be as much fun.  I will be going up to Washington State in a few weeks and my plan will to be take lots of pictures and collect papers and make a book about it all when I get home.  We'll see how that goes.   By the way, Mary Ann says in her videos that she prints photos on Staples Matte photo paper.  I bought some and I LOVE how it looks and feels. The photos take on a different look and the weight and texture of the paper makes great book pages.  I can second her recommendation. I now find myself looking at papers everywhere, seeing it as a potential book page part.

Doorways

Goodness, who knew that deciding to work on a loose challenge with the theme "doorways" would have pushed you in that direction?  I love what you've done -- the way you've created the graffiti'd doors is really striking and effective.  We have already emailed back and forth about this, but I will add it here in case anyone is reading.  I suggested that you go in with colored pencil or watercolor crayon to add a lot of shadow and detail on the figures, to give them dimension and a level of detail and reality that the graffiti walls have.  I will be very interested to see if you do that, and if so, what results.

As you know, I've not been inspired in the art quilt arena lately, but I hope that working in other media for a while will feed me creatively and I figure it'll all come back around one of these days. That's how it seem to work for me.

But "doorway."  When I suggested it I don't think I had any particular thing in mind except that it did have a literal meaning and various figurative ones that would give us a lot to work with.

I realized that I tend to take a lot of photos of doorways ... here are some, for example.

By the way, do you recognize that center one at the top, in black and white?  I took that when we were at the warming hut in SF together -- I snapped it from where we were sitting.  

And I apparently paint more doorways than I'd realized, too.   I guess that goes with painting houses and other buildings.  Here's a sampling of those: 

But looking at how many doorways made me think it'd be fun to try something I've been thinking about.  I selected a few doorway images, manipulated them in different ways in Photoshop, and then sent them off to Spoonflower.com to have them printed on a large piece of fabric to work with.  It should be interesting to see how those come out.

By the way, in case you are gnashing your teeth that Spoonflower would not be affordable for you from the UK, I thought I'd mention that Laura Kemshall has started Fingerprint  for "bespoke" printing of one's own images on fabric.

So, I have a bit of a plan for a doorway art quilt, but I will have to see what develops when the fabric arrives.  And meanwhile, just doing that seems to have shaken something loose and I have started in working on a very old UFO to see if I can finish it.  Detail on my blog!  Apparently I have gone through some sort of creative doorway... hee hee hee.

Appreciating the Ordinary, Embracing the Wonky

Dear Helen,

As you know, I'm a sucker for a good online, go-at-your-own-pace workshop.  And recently, I jumped into another one, called "Draw your Awesome Life" taught by Joanne Sharpe.  I've taken classes from Joanne before, and I like her enthusiasm and her free-wheeling style.  She emphasizes being yourself and drawing or lettering in your very own style, versus trying to be perfect and realistic and all.

Even though I've been sketching and painting pretty regularly, this class beckoned to me for a bunch of reasons.  In art, I'm drawn to the idea of finding beauty in the ordinary.  So the idea of using the bits of every day life and seeing the "awesome" in them is right up my alley.  Also, there's a sense of gratitude in all  of this -- recognizing the wonderfulness of the simplest bits of every day living, and appreciating it and even celebrating it in art. This feels like an important reminder for me, especially in this phase where I'm feeling so, well, transitional.

Plus, the other goal was to just get myself to loosen up.  I feel like my sketches have gotten tighter and fussier (and more boring) and I need something to get away from that.  I think this fast and loose and fun approach is just the thing to shake me out of that.

So yesterday, I spent a bit of time -- and a very little bit, actually -- doing the "draw one leaf five ways" assignment.  Very freeing.

I have been reminded how much I like contour drawing -- how it really is loose and freeing.  Wonky.  Remember how I said I'm trying to "embrace the wonky" in my sketches?  I keep forgetting that.  Contour drawing makes me remember.

I don't know where this will lead.  I think the loosening up is what I need right now, the permission to draw fast lines and splash the paint around.  Will this transfer into fiber art?  Who knows.  But it feels right, right now. 

Visiting, Painting, and Eating (edited version)

Good morning, Helen!
You will recognize this page in my sketchbook from your recent visit and our trip to SHED in Healdsburg. What a lovely visit that was -- thank you again for coming all of this way. You are an easy friend to entertain. We like so many of the same things that we do not have difficulty coming up with options to fill our time, do we?
In any event, I finished my page after you left and thought you'd like to see it. Will you add your sketch to this post?

Hi,Diane,
It has taken me a while but finally here is my page. You seem to have yours at a better size and you now, its so long since I blogged I have almost forgotten how to do it, so excuse the modest picture! I too really enjoyed our time together and we certainly need to do it again. Not least so you can explain again how I can stop my watercolours looking so inspid!

Love,
Helen.

Posted with Blogsy

Taking Tea

As you know, I just returned home from a two-week road trip around the Pacific Northwest.  One of my stops was in Victoria, British Columbia, and while there I enjoyed not just one, but two lovely afternoon tea experiences.  As this blog is titled Tea and Talk for Two, I thought it fitting to tell you about the first of them.  And you can see I did a page spread in my Road Trip Journal about it.

To set the scene: earlier that day, I had come from Port Townsend, Washington where I'd been visiting friends for several days.  I enjoyed the ferry ride across the Strait of Juan de Fuca (between Port Angeles, Washington and Victoria, BC) but I was too early to check into my hotel.  So I parked my luggage and car there, and headed out to find food.  I was hungry.  I walked for a bit when it dawned on me that I was in Victoria and there were places to get afternoon tea!  Asking in a few shops, I was directed to the Venus Sophia Tearoom which was a few blocks away.

There it was.  It was quiet and not crowded at all, a pleasant and homey atmosphere, not intimidating or formal in the least.

I selected my tea (earl grey, my tea of choice with afternoon tea goodies) and when they brought me the beautiful tea cup, I thought I would have a go at painting it.

 I have to confess that if the shop had been full of people, I might have felt too self-conscious to actually paint.  I might have pulled out the sketchbook, but I would have felt a bit too conspicuous with my paint palette out.  But because it was quiet and there wasn't anyone around to watch (the only person near me was a woman who was engrossed in a book), I went ahead.

At that point, I decided to do the whole three-tiered plate of tea goodies.  And it was a struggle, I tell you -- I wanted to eat but I knew I needed to see them in order to draw them.  So I had to get a good start on the sketch before I could taste anything!

Welcome to my Travel Sketch Kit

I do not have to explain to you how important it is to have the right supplies for being able to do what you want to do.  And now that I'm trying to sketch and paint out in the world, I needed to find the right travel kit.  And I think I have it!  I know you want the details.

First, the bag.  I've used various containers over the last few months, often one of my African baskets, But while those worked adequately for some situations (say, hanging out at Starbuck's), it wasn't a good option for sketchcrawl sort of walks.  (Well, the one I did.)  So, I did extensive internet research, and came upon this bag by Tom Bihn, a travel bag company in Seattle.  This is the large Cafe Bag, a style of messenger bag that suited my needs perfectly.  (I agonized between the medium and the large for some time, then figured that there was only a few inches' difference and I'd rather have a bit too much space than too little.) It comes in all sorts of colors.  Mine is actually somewhat darker than the way it shows up in this picture.

Stunning green interior, isn't it?  So, you see the big zip pocket on this side, and the main compartment opens on top.

 

On the back side, there's another pocket -- stylishly slanted. 

 Oops, I forgot to take a picture showing the inside side pockets, but here's a picture from the Tom Bihn website that shows the handy side pockets.  There are also some tether straps that hook to rings inside -- one I use for my car keys, another for a little zipper pouch in which I put money and driver's license and a credit card.  I have a third pouch which I might use for colored pencils when I want to bring them along.

Here's what I carry inside, at present:

 Water bottle

Plastic deli container for water

Spray bottle with water

Watercolor palette (Schmincke metal with 12 half pans of color)

Tube of white gouache (as yet unused)

Pencil/Pen/Brush case 

Here's the palette open, by the way.  It's a very handy little size.

Oh, and I carry my sketchbook, which at present is one of these -- a Canson spiral-bound journal with watercolor paper.  It's about the size of my Ipad. 

Plus there's room to tuck in the personal Filofax that I use as my wallet if I want to bring the whole thing. I am totally in love with the little pencil case. 

I found it at Jetpens.com, and it's called a Lihit Lab Teffa Pen Case.  I decided I wanted one container to put my pens, pencils and brushes in.  The fabric roll I made has just proven to be awkward when I'm sitting on a park bench somewhere.  So I figured that something that zipped and had a flap or two to hold items would work.  Those

Here's how it looks when you first open it, and here are the pens and pencils.

I'm finding my essentials are:

Two Preppy Platinum fountain pens (fine nib), one with black ink and one with brown (these pens are really inexpensive, about $4 each, but they're great.  I'm planning adding two more to this kit, for green and gray inks)

3 waterproof pens of varying point sizes

2 mechanical pencils, one of which is a new favorite sketching tool- a Faber Castell "clutch" pencil

On the other side of that flap, there's this, with some mesh pockets and more room for tall items:

Here's what I've got on this side:

 

Erasers (one regular, one kneaded)

A bit of sponge for texturing purposes

Rubber bands (to hold pages down in wind)

2 water brushes

a white opaque ink pen

a few sticks for scraping

3 travel watercolor brushes (size 8, 6, and 3) 

This set up holds everything I need, it's easy to use outdoors and holds things securely, AND there is room for more.  

Have bag, will travel.  And sketch.