Cracked it!

Dear Diane,
Hey! How are you?! I couldn't get a table at our usual BocBoc cafe so I am re-trying a farm shop about fifteen minutes away. I came once and it was not that good but I am giving it a second go. As you can see its more countrified than our usual place and the chairs less comfortable but it was a nice sunny drive through country to get here, and its a quite place to blog and journal for a while so that's fine.

But look, I just have to show you this, I am so excited. You know how much I have struggled with  sketchbooking ( is that a word?) and how I like the immersion in the process but tend to be really disappointed with my output at the end. Well, I declare myself 95% happy with this spread. And the 5% unhappiness only relates to the ink smudges. They happened because my Platinum Carbon pen had been on a flight and like all fountain pens tended to leak a bit on first use after landing. Must be the cabin pressure or something. I didn't notice it was on my fingers. But, then again it reminds me of being on holiday so, maybe I am only 3% unhappy.

And in a roundabout way it was the holiday that made this page so happy-making. When I was in Florence I visited an art shop looking for useful souvenirs. Anything art related I didn't already have. And I ended up buying some Softaqua watercolour brushes by Raphael because they said they held twice the amount of colour of other brushes. And boy, do they! Much of my previous dissatisfaction - even after swapping to Daniel Smith paints - was my inability to get bright solid colour and to control fine lines. Turns out it was my brushes.  I don't know if, once post don line, this iPhone snap really shows it but there is a big difference in my work with these high paint  load brushes. I love them! You can get these brushes in the USA here and the UK here.

Now I need to find a good travel holder for them:)

I had had the soiled stained notes I scribbled(about what bulbs I had planted where)  set aside to write up into my garden journal for a week. Meanwhile I was debating whether or not to sign up to the storytelling class at Sketchbook Skool, simply because I am saving up for new camera lenses and I thought maybe I should put the cash in that direction. Then, hours before the class started I signed up on a whim and watched the first class early this morning in my PJ's. I have discovered that using Apple TV to watch on the full sized screen is a very good thing to do. And of course that class, on documenting a recipe ( or effectively) a creative process inspired me to go immediately and do this page.  I was amazed when I surfaced and realised I had spent nearly two hours on it. Where did that time go?!

[interlude: My soup came and it had an onion bhaji in it which was weird but absolutely fantastically delicious! If had dot photograph because of the strong side light from a window. I  am glad I tried here again!] 

Of course, whilst falling down the creative well like that is always a good thing, at the same time its not always possible for me to find such  a long time in one go.  And that brings me back to photography.

I know you love both your camera and your sketchbook and I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of my new Olympus mirrorless camera. So, I was wondering: when you are out travelling, or indeed, if you are pottering at home, what factors influence your decision to sketch or to photograph? Do you ever do both in relation to the same subject? How does the process differ for you?

I paused watching the Sketchbook Skool videos to make some toast and thought : I should draw this toast making process. Then I thought: but then the toast will go cold! Maybe I should take clever food photographs of my toast. But then, because I am still at the point and shoot stage and eagerly awaiting proper lenses and time to read my pile of photography books, I thought: but maybe a styled photo of toast isn't actually that quick. I don't know. Guess I will find out as I learn!

It will be interesting to see how the two different ways of making an image make me feel, how I experience the different media. Because I think for me a lot of making art is about that - how it makes me feel. My Softaqua brush trial gave me a "Yes!! At Last!" feeling.  Which I think ought to be celebrated with apple and berry crumble Don't you?  I'll nip down and get them. Do you want cream or ice cream with yours?

Helen

PS Something else deeply satisfying I learned whist typing this post. If you are in iOS 8 on ipad or iPhone, if you go to settings - general - keyboard - edit you can delete that IRRITATING emoticon key on the new keyboard that I kept hitting by accident. 

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?

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