My New Book is Out--AT LAST!

It's called Artist's Sketchbook; Techniques for Sketching on the Spot, and I'm very excited about the response it's gotten already--it just started arriving in peoples' mailboxes last week!

It features the works of a number of other international urban sketchers, most of them well known in our sketching family.  You'll find Don Low, Pat Southern-Pearce, Don Gore, Warren Ludwig, Vicky Williamson, Laura Murphy Frankstone, Roz Stendahl, Shari Blaukopf, Marc Taro Holmes, Nina Khashchina, Nik Ira, Steve Penberthy, Allisa Duke, Roisin Cure, Nina Johansson, Liz Steel, Danny Gregory, and Jennifer Lawson, as well as some of the finest naturalist/artists around.  People like Jan Blencowe, John Muir Laws, Kolby Kirk, Shevaun Doherty, Maria Coryell-Martin, Joseph Ruckman and Sue Hodnett fill the pages of the book with inspiration and demos.

I hope these images will give you a taste...

Here, the subject is travel sketching, featuring work by Laura Murphy Frankstone, Nina Johannson, Alissa Duke, Gay Kraeger, all accomplished travel sketchers!  And that's my sketch of the Kansas City airport terminal...on the right hand page.

Discussing format at the top of the page...see how effectively Don Gore and Don Low have handled an extreme vertical on opposite sidees of the globe?  The lower images are my own, dealing with the surprises we sometimes run into, working on the spot!

Of course we cover materials and supplies for sketching on the spot...

And there are plenty of demos...here, I add watercolor to an ink sketch.

Lots of opportunities for nature sketching, right in our own back yard!

We talk about different tools and paper surfaces and size...

...and look at how different artists handle similar subjects...here, at upper left, Marc Holmes is hard at work.  Below that, Nina Khashchina explores the rocky coast.  At upper right is Shari Blaukopf's fresh beach scene...Nina Johannson paints the palms and beach in the Dominican Republic,  and the surf sketch on toned paper is mine, from one of our trips to California.  Widely varying conditions of waters all over the place...

Steve Penberthy (top) and I explore landscape and water...

Taking a peek at colored pencils...that's my husband Joseph at left!

The back of the book is almost as pretty as the front!

I'll be giving you more sneak peeks in the next week or so, but better yet, snag your own copy! 
In the US the 128-page book is available from Amazon , as well as local bookstores and art supply stores, and soon to come on my own website if you'd like a signed copy!

If you get it and you like it, please consider writing a review on Amazon, it would be much appreciated!

Meaningful Journaling Class...really! One of these days...and a question

Hi all...I'd appreciate your thoughts on this!  I WILL be working on the class on Meaningful Journaling again...I got sidetracked by life and other considerations, and now I find I have a question. 

I've recently taken a couple of online classes that were almost exclusively videos.  Mine are usually heavily PDF, with video supplements, these days (though I didn't used to include videos in my early classes, if you've taken those.)

I much prefer the format I use even when I'm TAKING a class, for various reasons.  Here are a few of them:

I don't want to spend that much time in front of the computer. 

I can only watch videos right here, not out on the deck or in my shed or on the go.  If I print a PDF, I can take with.

My attention wanders when a video takes too long (for me, that appears to be anything over 10 minutes, usually.)

I like to be able to easily refer back to a section or a detail or a particular point.

I like clickable links, which videos don't have.

I like good clear visuals/illustrations that are easy to find again.

I like to be able to underline or make notes, if I've printed out a lesson.

Videos often feel so slooooooooow...and I tend to scroll ahead.

When I want to review something in a video, it's harder to find again than when I simply turn a page.

There are more reasons, I'm sure, just not bringing them to mind at the moment.

So what are your thoughts?


My current classes are here, by the way: http://cathyjohnson.info/online.html