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!

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

 

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

Battling the sketching

Dear Diane,
I loved to see your sketching kit. I imagine you out there in the Californian sun, with your plein air hat on, all serene, painting with your kit sorted in perfect ergonomic alignment. Like a surgeon,
" Number six brush!"
Your hand goes out and there it is. I imagine it to be peaceful and restful. Even the 'urban' in your sketching looks semi- bucolic with the greenery all around.
Me? Ha. Less urban sketching and urban warfare. Battling against my lack of perfect kit and the psychological warfare that goes on in my head.
First, my watercolours. (And yes, there is a U in colour. Don't even try to tell me otherwise or I shall shoot you with my spray bottle. Or I would had I not left it at home, not having a perfectly organised sketching bag yet. ) I listened to your advice. Student paints will be trouble. Invest in artist quality ones. So I ordered this set of Windsor and Newton Artist quality half pans.

It was not cheap. So I was a little foxed to find that if you unwrap the 24 half pans there is a ton of space left at the end of each line. So I budged them all up, added a white and an empty pan from an old Cotman student grade set and folded some paper up and stuffed it at the end of the row where there was still a gap but not enought of a gap for a half pan. Why would they make a 24 pan box that holds two rows of thirteen and a half half-pans?
I got over that annoyance soon enought and made a paint chart. Watercolours in a pan don't always look like they come out on paper so a reference guide as to what was where in my box seemed like a plan.

Would have worked a treat except, look what happens when you actually take your sketchers box out to sketch and open it up! What drongo designed this thing? I am not pleased. The saving grace is that the paint in the box costs a lot more if bought individually than in this piece of *$$%.
Ahem. Sorry about that. Any recommendation for an empty pallette that will hold half pans in nice and snug?
So anyway. The rest of the kit is a motley assortment of pens and water brushes in a pencil case and a Filofax. Currently an A5 Amazona. This is filled with proper Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper as recommendedby Ed from Mostly Drawing and I have so say that I like it. It takes watercolours without difficulty but still feels like paper not card. And the genius of the Filofax as sketchbook is (a) no wated time self binding books. Punch and go. Yeah! (b) No need to always carry a dedicated sketchbook. Slip a few pages of this paper into the A5s I use most often including my work ones so I always have paper. Then the kit can roll about the bottom of my handbag.
So, that is adequate, although I can see how it could be improved upon.
I am still struggling to use my kit though, mostly because I am inexpert and therefore hate the results. This weekend I went on two sketching opportunities. The first was to Cheetham Hill in Manchester where there is no semi-buccolic greenery. I actually went because wanted to take some more covert photos of people in the community for use in quilt work. Covert is not easy with a camera, especially when your skin and dress already make you stick out a mile. I was also mindful that the Asian communities are suffering increased attacks following the Woolwich murders and that they may be a bit twitchy about people photographing at the moment. So I first treated myself to a shop in the wonderful supermarkets which are remarkably cheap and stocked with exotic foods. I love to be in these shops. I thought a bag of guava jelly, arabic flat breads, paneer and spices might give me some legitimacy. Then, I sat in the sun on a low wall and looked across this road and attempted to sketch the shop. Then, whenever a saw a woman who caught my eye I would take some snaps, thinking that I could justify them as references for the sketching if anyone asked.

I had not long started when a young man came past pulling a large wire trolley full of fruit and veg. He stopped,
"Are you drawing it?"
"Trying to. I've only just started learning to sketch."
He looked across at the shop. " Oh, you picked it for the colours and stuff? Show me when I come back."
By the time he came back I had produced an excorable mess. I am not showing you. He looked at it,
"It's a good start. In a couple of months you'll be really good."
Bless him!
But isn't it funny how you seem to instinctively draw buildings and I much prefer people. Todays outting was to BocBoc where the staff tolerate me messing up their tables.

This guy was enjoying his eggs on toast.

You know how we have been talking privately about finding an artistic voice? Well, I feel that my people all look like I drew them and I can see myself improving so I am not unhappy with them even though I'd like to get better still. But my buildings and travel sketches look like they were drawn by a camel with a pen in its mouth. They make me very unhappy.

So. I have decided to treat this sketching lark as if it were a compulsory college course. It is something I should learn and I accept, like Latin, it may benefit me in indirect ways later even if I don't make it my life's passion. I am open to being suprised and hooked by it and am willing to work at it and not give up so I can give myself a passing grade. Rather than messing about in ignorance I am going to educate myself. I will persevere until the end of the year and then I will review whether I will continue or not.

I have ordered some books on basic techniques and have made a list of more advanced ones to progress through. I narrowed those down by only choosing the ones where the examples were in a style of watercolour that made me excited. (i.e not your average insipid country landscape). I did look at online courses but rejected them on cost/ unsuitable starting date/ really irritating voice and accent of instructor and the fact that watching a video makes me impatient and I tend to drift off and do something else. I prefer written instructions. Much quicker. In the process though I found many free online tutorials to work through and some short youtube clips. I am compiling a collection of journal page images to emulate. I have set out my objectives and goals so I am clear what it is I am trying to attain. And of course I wrote it all down on an assortment of nice paper in my wine zip Holborn Filofax which is just lovely to touch and makes me happy to use and which therefore offsets that useless paint box!

And, I am adopting the attitude that there are artists who use watercolours in a way that gets me interested and inspired and that if they can do it then it can't be so hard that I cannot do it, if only I decide to learn how. Then, when I feel I know what I am doing and what I use most I will address my kit again.

The books should arrive at the weekend. In the meantime, I am off to scrape orange and yellow screen inks on to fabric for a wholecloth quilt background. That I know how to do!

Love,

Helen

Posted with Blogsy

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.

 

Wet studio tour

The bad news is that Dennis says he is contemplating cancelling your standing invitation on the basis that you are a bad influence on me. It was all those photos of pallettes that did it. I suddenly wanted me one too :) and some good watercolour paper to boot. At the moment I am using a pencil case set of Aquatone which I tend to use by lifting the colour off with a wet waterbrush rather than 'colouring in with them' and wetting the paper. I like the ease of this and the portabilty but the downside is that they don't come in a pallette and so I tend not to carry one. That in turn means I tend not to mix colours and if I want to dilute them I end up doing it on the back of my hand. Not recommended practice I am sure!
Well, I say I am using them... Very occasionally! I know that you will say that it need not take very long but there are too many creative things I want to do all at once which individually do not take very long but together take more time than I have. But I am trying. Last week, rather than trying to beat the rush hour home I waited it out in Cafe Nero. My plan had been to do some urban sketching of buildings but of course five minutes before I left work the heavens opened. And anyway,my instinct - rather suprisingly- has been to go for people. And people sit relatively still in cafes. So this was the result.

I think it was probably better before I added the colour:

And you have seen my Tayto crisp packet.
But in reponse to me showing you that you asked was I now seeing the point of drawing ordinary things. Well, yes and no :) I get flashes of understanding then they go. I remember when we were in Kaikoura New Zealand it was tipping it down with rain with wind and, as the only thing to do there is go on the sea, all the activities were cancelled and we holed up in our flat reading. At one point the rain stopped and as I got up I saw, from the balcony a whole mountain range a short distance away that simply had not been visible through the greyness. I grabbed the camera, took a few shots, the clouds closed in again and that was all we saw of Kaikoura. Its a bit like that!
So as of the moment you asked the question, the answer was, well I have some vague recollection of why it was of vast importance that I learn to paint snack foods, but I seem to have forgotten :) I think the answer might be as simple as: its important to allow time in life to do ultimately pointless things because they renew your resources to do the .. whats the word?Pointful?.... things. But them we come back to posisble activities competing for time.
Just do one picture a day! Just a small sketch page. Thats the advice I have read so often. And it sounds tempting. Just a half hour. A quarter hour even. Trouble is, I read a lot of well meaning advice and so I know that I am also supposed to be reading, journalling, running, doing yoga, meditating, organising my cupboards, eating with my spouse ( and mindfully cleaning up afterwards),keeping in touch with friends and community and blogging. For just half an hour a day. On top of a full time job. And I'like to actually do some textile art now and again please. And maybe have a bath. ( Admittedly I cam multi task there and I do read or even meditate in the bath. But watersoluble media and baths do not seem like a plan to me! Unless, can you marble in bathwater maybe?)
So, I cannot see sketching being something I habitually do every day or even most days. But, that does not mean it cannot be done regularly. I am contemplating, now it is summer waiting out the traffic maybe once a fortnight. I do have motivation to learn:

• I trust your view that it will benefit me
• I would like to be competent enough with the media to make nice travel journals when I am off work and have time to sketch. I particularly want to sketch with you when we visit
• I like the process of learning new things and having a 'project'
• I want to own a box of colour. Thats cool!

So I have added that to my new Studies Filofax.. But thats a post for another day! For now I have to go and wrap this breakdown printed fabric in plastic to cure. I have to say this took priority over a sketch today:) I'll let you know how it turned out.

Love,
Helen.
PS You can now see the result of the breakdown printing over at My Down the Well Blog.

Posted with Blogsy

Which palette? Which colors? Which brushes?

Remember the immediate thrill and attraction when you discovered the Philofaxy blog?  Well, yesterday on a watercolor journaling facebook page I visit from time to time (The Artist's Journal Workshop), someone posted this photo:

Yes, it's her collection of watercolor paint palettes.  I was amazed (and stunned) when I saw it ... like we used to be at those pictures of stacks of filofax binders in all colors and sizes.   

But of course I had to look closer at all of the different palettes -- what sizes, configurations they are.  Because the questions of what palette to use, what assortment of paints (wet or pan? What brand?), what colors, is as engrossing and instructive as are the personalize-your-planner entries I know you love.

So that photo led me to a group on Flickr, "Sketch Kits," where people post photos or paintings or sketches of their sketching gear. I was (to use a british expression) gobsmacked, but in the most delightful of ways.  And guess what?  There are other similar groups on Flickr:

"Sketching Gear" 
 "What's In Your Art Bag?" for photos and drawings of what's in your art bag, of course
 "Paint Palettes" for photos of paint palettes only
"About My Studio/Sketch Stuff" for pictures and drawings of all sorts of art stuff

There are people blogging about their watercolor palettes and color choices and palette hacks and paper and pen options, like Cathy Johnson here, and Roz Stendahl does here and all over her blog...

And you will not be surprised to know that there are people posting videos to show what they keep in their sketch kits, as Carole does here. There are probably tons on Youtube but I haven't ventured to look yet. My head is swirling with enough as it is.

I find it endlessly fascinating.  The visual delight of all that color, for one thing.  Looking at how people arrange things, and come up with clever solutions for little problems, and sort their colors... It is artistic voyeurism and education all at once.

After several happy hours cruising through all of these, I was thoroughly inspired and did a bit of painting with my sister, with this as the result:

I think I told you I'm trying to do a painting every day in connection with a Facebook group called Every Day In May , and yesterday's topic was a pine tree.  I set out to focus on the cedar tree in the corner of the backyard with the chair in its shade, and the flowers sort of carried me away.

 This is a very deep rabbit hole indeed.  I went to bed with visions of palettes and paint colors swirling around in my head, and I woke up this morning feeling almost hung-over with thoughts of colors and palette configurations and such.  For some strange reason, I'm feeling the need to rethink my paint palette set up...  

In Defense of Lemons and Other Subjects

 

I am delighted to hear that you have finally caught onto an appreciation for sketching!  I suppose the experience your post describes illustrates an example of just not being ready until one is ready.  You had to see, via the Illustrated Traveler book, a reason to do it -- or, rather, a context in which doing it seemed worthwhile to you.  So I'm glad you have had your big light-bulb moment, so that you can experience the fascinating process of getting lost in the shapes and lines you see in what is around you and trying to put them onto paper.  The sketches you showed looked like they could have come out of the Illustated Traveler book! I'm impressed at how you've jumped in and made a lot of very nice sketches.  I hope you are finding it fun.  Me, I think that's the most important part.

Your description of Mr Barr and the way he squelched your art-making enthusiasm sounds all too familiar, I'm afraid.  I think a lot of people have stories of some teacher throwing out a thoughtless but confidence-squashing comment.  I suspect they'd be surprised at the way their words echo in people's minds for so long.  I hope that by now art teachers are taught NOT to stay such damaging comments!  Clearly, that experience still rankles even though you can see how stupid a comment it was, and how ridiculously UNcreative the situation was.  Well, go forward and keep proving that guy wrong. 

I didn't have any experience like that, but I have to say that I didn't even try art classes in school because I was convinced before I left home that I couldn't draw.  My sister, who is 4 years older than me, started drawing and kept right on drawing all through her childhood.  So by the time I could pick up a crayon, I could see that her drawings were far better than mine, and I was immediately discouraged.  I didn't have the logic skills to realize that of course she was better -- she was older and more coordinated and she'd had a whole lot more practice. I just thought that she was an artist, and I wasn't. Period.  It took me until well into my adult life to realize that drawing is a skill one can LEARN, and get better at.  It was a massive revelation.  

But, on the topic of unintentionally dampening comments, I have to talk about the paintings of lemons and butternut squashes and such that I've shown you. I get (and certainly don't quarrel) with your lack of desire to draw that sort of thing.  That's totally fine with me!  But while you see a sketch of a random, ordinary fruit or vegetable, what I see is an exercise in practicing seeing shapes, and drawing perspective, and composing a page, and getting the watercolor paints to do what I want them to do.  I've done a lot of those sorts of things in classes, for the exercise of working on various techniques.  So that lemon page?  I was trying to see if I could get the pebbled texture of lemon skin, and the shading of greeny yellow around the stem, and the translucent paleness of the lemon pulp.  It's not about drawing the lemon for the sake of drawing a lemon.  It's about the process of sketching and painting something, and trying to learn and practice techniques to capture what I see.  That peapod page up there?  It was not only hugely educational (and fun) to paint the peapod and try to capture the rounded depth of the pod, but I was playing with stylizing designs from those shapes. I've never looked at a peapod so closely before.

So while it's not A-R-T or even an effort to capture a specific moment, it's part of my enjoying the process of learning to draw and paint.  And, I find, looking at my drawing of a lemon or squash or peapod brings me back to the time when I was painting it in a surprisingly clear way.  

At this point in my life, my "travel sketching" is all about my daily travels. I've been trying to get better about carrying sketching materials with me.  So although I've not been anywhere terribly foreign or interesting lately, I've had fun drawing some of the ordinary places I go.  The other day, I sketched and painted the scene as I watched my daughter's horsback riding lesson: 

 I've sat in the car between appointments to sketch a garden that struck my fancy.  (I find that drawing houses and buildings is forcing me to figure out perspective a bit better):

 I've captured a moment at my local library:

and the view from a parking lot when I stopped for a cup of coffee on a busy errand-filled afternoon:

I sketched a bit while visiting my sister and sitting with her in her backyard:
 

 Hmm, maybe one of the more "travelly" pages I did was at the Bishop's Ranch last time I was on a quilting retreat there:

 When I went to PIQF last year, I sat for a while (again, with a restorative cup of coffee) I was inspired by the snatches of conversation I was hearing from quilters around me and sketched a bit of the lobby area in which I was sitting:

When I went to the quilt show in Houston, I spent an evening in the hotel room sketching and painting some of the items I'd brought with me

 I really admire your tackling people ... I've tended to shy away from faces.  But looking through my journal, I find I've tried a few.  Here's a page that I drew while Caroline was getting her teeth cleaned:

 

 Oh, another from another library trip, one of the few head-on faces I've tried:

I have to part ways with you on the using a filofax for sketching.  I've tried, I really have.  I'm glad to hear that it's working for you and that the rings don't bother you. They sure bothered me.  But I'm happy using my assortment of bound sketchbooks -- sometimes I have have a moleskine with heavy drawing paper, sometimes I use a Stillman & Birn "Beta" journal with a heavyish drawing paper that holds watercolor paints suitably...  I have a bunch of different sketchbooks going and I'm not letting it bother me that different drawings end up in different places.  I work by size, really -- I'll grab a small book to carry with me somewhere, or use a bigger journal if I'm painting at home.

When you come to California next fall (squeal!) we shall have to plan our own sketch crawls! But I might drag you to a vineyard and make you paint grapes...