The Importance of Sketching in Challenging Times...

It occurs to me that our sketchbooks are an amazing tool for entertainment, practice and even mental health and more, especially if we are in lockdown, or self-isolating, or quarantined during the COVID19 response.

A friend of mine, art teacher Mark Alan Anderson, is using his sketchbook to keep his spirits up--and ours!  The cartoons are funny, poignant, and all too honest...and he's given me permission to share (thanks, Mark!) A light in dark times.

I look forward to his sketches every day...you can find him online in our Artist's Journal Workshop Facebook group and other places...

You can see more of Mark's ongoing and delightful coping mechanism on Artist's Journal Workshop on Facebook, or on his always-inspiring blog, here.

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Once during a particularly difficult period in my own life, I kept my sanity and my sense of humor by creating what I called my Fantasy Journal--or maybe I should have called it a Sanity Journal!  My mother-in-law was suffering from dementia of a particularly angry and paranoid sort, and we would get several phone calls a day from her, from her caregiver, from Joseph's sister...it got so I couldn't bear the sound of the phone!

Enter the Fantasy Journal...I kept it right near the phone, with my art supplies, and when I could tell it was One Of THOSE Calls, I'd sit near my poor husband and draw another page!  It made us both feel better.

You may have seen it before, but the current situation reminds me--maybe it's a good time for another one!

You can find the whole journal here on YouTube.

Our journals really can help us find our way through stressful periods...my old sanity map helped me to see I had a lot more choices than I thought I did!  Maybe we could map our way through the days, now...

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Think about it.  Someday our journals from this time may just be historically important, too.

Think of how many journals and sketchbooks artists and writers and everyday folk have kept during wartime that give us an inside view of what life was like for them--how they lived, how they coped. Some cartoonist/soldiers that were incarcerated in WWII let us see their lives and times--and their indomitable courage--in a way that newsreels never could.

Think of the Diary of Anne Frank.  

Think of the Native Americans' winter count images...

Think of Medieval monks toiling away on their illuminated manuscripts, sneaking in drawings of cats or or rabbits attacking mounted horsemen.



There are literally dozens of sketch journals kept by farmers, housewives, schoolgirls, travelers and explorers, as well.  They're treasures!

Why not record your own life and coping mechanisms during difficult times?  Fantasize, draw where you'd like to be or what you'd like to be doing.  Draw what you ARE doing.  Draw your toilet paper, if you like!

If nothing else, you will have a record of courage and survival your children and grandchildren will treasure, and that you can look back on and think "Yes.  We survived.  We are strong."

Don't feel up to making a big deal of it?  Feels too overwhelming?  Try quick sketches, or tiny ones to fill a page, in a grid.  

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And of course there are also any number of groups and individuals stepping up to this challenge, offering prompts or sketchalongs if you're stuck, and those too are valuable.

But think of this as your opportunity to win a moment in history.

Things that capture our imagination...

Wolves--beautiful, wild, intelligent--do it for me.  This one has been part of my imaginal world, as Dr. Sharon Blackie calls it, for years, looking straight into my soul, speaking wild words to me.  I drew this one a couple of years ago, after a soul-journey.


What captures your imagination and won't let go?

Graphite pencil and watercolor, in my journal.

Choices, Time, and life just a bit out of control.

Well, all right, a LOT out of control. What IS this thing called control, and do I even want it?

Too many choices, too many opportunities, and an embarrassment of riches! 

I still feel the urge to journal and paint...

I love learning, and I am a sucker for books...but I have way, way more than I'll ever be able to read, on a wide variety of subjects. 

And then there are the online courses and classes and videos and groups and seminars and docu-series and workshops and webinars and membership programs and "summits" that capture my interest or curiosity...

I am currently in two membership programs and managed to pass on another one yesterday, a supporter of two Patreons with lots of wonderful offerings I am behind on, taking a class in February that requires preparation NOW (and it's fun and fascinating so of couse I make time!), finishing up a course I was behind in, and signed up for gnomonworkshops.com for a month or two to learn some new techniques for sculpting...

...and of course there are my own projects. The sewing, the character dolls, cooking, fermenting, herbalism, tinctures, journaling, painting, meditation, qi gong, tai chi, healing modalities...

This is Faeana Fawkes, who appeared in my imagination last summer and would NOT let go...

Who knew Faeana would bring so many more along with her?!  She was the result of a meditation or a shamanic journey after 3 years of foxes appearing in my life.

She was followed by a number of others, including these two soft-sculpture stuffed foxy girls, Joyful and her sister Studious. 

And then there's sewing for myself...

 
And Joseph...

He loves his warm, cozy short robe...

 

And eco-dyeing, one of the courses I'll be taking...there's a Daily Om one, too (and another Daily Om that Joseph would like to take together)...

I AM getting better at hitting delete delete delete DELETE on lists and offerings and courses, and even book temptations, and  I'm unsubscribing right, left, and center (how DID I get on so many mailing lists?!?), but even so...my poor brain feels like a bit of tasty snack food with a bunch of seagulls gathering to nibble it madly (and noisily!) to bits.  

Awake before five this morning trying to think WHICH of the many things to do...and here it is mid-morning and I've accomplished very little.  Paralyzed by choices...and by the internet...

I can't count the times I have aimed for more focus, stillness, attention, Presence...

"Be here now," Ram Dass entreated us, many years ago.  But where is here...?

Under the heading of "art, life,"--and other craziness! Making videos...

Folding journals ARE fun to work in, and relatively fast to make...

They can be small, with only a few pages, like this one, or you can join multiple strips for a longer journal.

I am working on some new videos and images for a new project Danny Gregory's putting together--a new approach upcoming in the future.  Sounded like fun, and relatively easy--which it IS.  Or would be...

This illustration was from a nice, easy PDF a few years ago.  LOTS easier than doing a video, let me tell you!

But oh my, today was one of those days.  (Actually the last two I got off to him a couple of weeks ago were a bit problematical, too, since after multiple tries at sharing our Dropbox folders I ended up doing unlisted videos on YouTube for him to download...it worked, but it was a little less than smooth! )

Anyway, today we finally got a good day and enough time after our doctors' appointments this morning.  Got the table, my chair, lights, tripod, journals, cover boards, glue, stamps, etc. all corralled and ready to go...

And found that NEITHER of our printers is working, so I couldn't print out my script for video with the "starting a new journal" idea, so I decided fine, I'd just do the ones that I didn't need a script for.

And discovered the camera battery was dead.  Found another battery, got the first video almost done (on making covers for the zigzag journals) when Amazon delivered and banged on the door in the middle of videoing!  (Funny, can't say filming any more...or taping...) 

Soooo, starting over on that one, all worked fine this time, and I decided to do a couple of show-and-tell journal videos too, just showing the various techniques and images.  Everybody loves to browse someone else's journal, right?? 

Got done with the first one and the light's battery died just as I started the second.   I decided we were done for the day...

No, this wasn't today...things are quite a bit more complex now.  For one thing, my indoor cats are nosy!  This was the shed, a few years ago, in the winter.  Nice bounced light, though!

I'm putting both of them on YouTube as unlisted, again, and hope they work.  Been at 68% for well over an hour...

Babble babble...

And then, oops.  Watching the videos, I realized I did say "oh, bugger" in the first one, when something went wrong, completely forgetting in the UK that is a BAD word for a lady to be using.   I figure Danny can edit out or leave it, it doesn't bother me, but it might someone!

I hope to get more done tomorrow, and perhaps more smoothly since surely we've worked the bugs out now and I don't feel quite so inept.  Knock wood.  Fingers crossed...

So for those who say it looks so easy, or who ask me why don't I do a video on this, or that, or more of them, or more often...maybe not.

Oh, yeah, I mentioned my YouTube video on making one-page folding journals and that I'd provide a link--that's here in case you'd like to see it again: https://youtu.be/CffQyRdTDUc

Observations from Nature--Being There

For some time, I've been writing my Dayspring observations and sharing them daily on Facebook...for five years now.  Joseph and I ring our small gong and then drum together to greet the new day, then I settle in with a cup of hot tea and my journal to see what unfolds.

My beloved husband says those observations too need sharing...and so here is this morning's...

A flock of noisy crows converge on the hill above the Smallwood--are they mobbing their ancient enemy the owl, or merely discussing avian politics?  I wish I could fly to them and ask what's up, the loud caw caw caw CAW goes on and on, for maybe 10 minutes!

And now I find it was not the owl, it was the red-shouldered hawk, who finally has had quite enough of that cacophanous harassment and streaks off screaming invective, escorted by a pair of corvids.  The rest fall silent, mission accomplished--they move on to the next challenge.

Mission accomplished--or is it!?  Now the hawk returns, screaming defiance--once the crows have moved on.

Farm Life, and Memories...

 

Another find I didn't know I still had--carbon copies of dozens of articles written in the 70s, our farm years, in the hope of earning part of our living from my writing. Some of it is tripe--trying for a "voice" that might appeal to the then-market of back-to-the-land hippie types, going for "down-home common folk"...what my dad would have called a "shit-kickin' country girl"--and a little of it is damn good. Not fakey, not fooling anybody either, not trying to be someone I wasn't...more like the honest farm diary I never actually kept.

But I guess I did. I had just hoped to share it with a larger audience.

 Almost none of it reached publication. A few articles in the Mother Earth News, a few accepted by but never published in Natural Lifestyles and other alternative publications. (Some published but never paid for, another source of anxiety. I remember all too well those long walks to the mailbox, hoping against hope for that promised $30 check...and the long walk back, in tears of frustration. We were more broke than I ever hope to be again...)

Reading one written during our third winter brought a different kind of tears to my eyes--we were exhausted but learning what farm life is really like. HARD. Demanding. Responsible. Beautiful. Eternal. Deeply satisfying.

And the writing is pretty good, too.

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This showed up in my Facebook memories today...and I thought I'd share.  Life.  That's what this blog is about, really...

Trying out Acrylic Gouache, Comparing to the Original Stuff...

Do you ever get tired of saving whites and lights or painting around them?  Do you love the look of plein air work done in oils or other opaque mediums?

I do, and I continue to look for a medium that I really like (in addition to my beloved watercolor) for plein air and journal work, sometimes wishing for freedom from "preserving those whites" that watercolor depends on so heavily--so I decided to give the new acrylic gouache a try.  

There are a number of brands--Holbein's Acryla Gouache is the one I chose, in small tubes to begin with.

Over the years I've used regular acrylics with pleasure in the studio, but I've only taken it with me once or twice in the field.  It dries quickly, and can't be lifted once dry, on the paper or on the palette, of course, but once your palette is dry in the field, you're done--unless you've packed a bunch of tubes!  

I've painted with regular gouache both as a professional illustrator and in my journal, and it's satisfying enough...in its way.  (Also called opaque watercolor, also tempera, I believe, in Europe--though it's not the same as childhood's tempera/poster paints.  These are artist quality.)  It can be frustrating, when lights dry darker and darks dry lighter, and I'd wondered if acrylic gouache had the same issues.

So for the past month, I've been exploring, trying out various approaches and applications!  

And so far I find acrylic gouache has pros and cons, for me. I will probably find it most useful, for under painting, tinting a page with a dark color or a mood-setting one.  It doesn't lift under subsequent applications, which may muddy your colors when using regular gouache unless you work very quickly and with a light touch. I DID use it on several of the pages here and it worked well.

(These are all in a journal, with pages approximately 5 x 7".)

I did a dark, almost black underpainting, mixed from burnt sienna and ultramarine, on this page before adding the late fall field in an opaque manner, allowing the dark to show through the closer earth and on the far hill. 

I used a combination of a watery, washy application and more opaque on this one...it feels a bit garish, to me, and I found it difficult to get quite the color/value I was after.  Like regular gouache, acrylic gouache doesn't always dry like you put it down, if not quite as markedly as regular gouache.  Darks still dry lighter, and lights dry darker to a degree, and I have not yet fully learned how to compensate.

 

This was a quick study of the falls at Tryst Falls Park near here...and you can see one of my first issues, above the sketch--the crowded mess on my palette!  I was also trying out the smaller Masterson's Sta-wet Handy Palette, and quickly ran out of unsullied mixing space on my very first couple of sketches.  Sure enough the paint DOES stay moist, but...

 

The one on the left is what is in this little journal.  TOO pebbly...but happily Fabriano's soft press is similar to the original.

I did utilize the roughness of the paper in the trees, though, for a lacy effect.  (This is another one that had an underpainting, this time mostly a thin layer of Acryla's Sky Blue.)

I like a palette with a good mixing area or wells, so I can mix a larger amount of paint. With the small, flat Sta-wet (about 6 1/2" x 8"), I run out of unsullied room quickly.  This is a problem with how I work, obviously, and not with the medium itself.

So because of the mess above, I decided to try again, and allow for more mixing room...I don't use all the colors that came in the set, but these seemed most useful.  (I mix my own greens, so no need for the two greens that came in the set.)

Not thinking about the fact that these are quite a bit runnier paints and need to be stored absolutely LEVEL...they didn't remain unsullied here, as you can see, and I haven't even started painting!  I would have to get used to the fact that these paints are more fluid...perhaps a different kind of palette would be better, and I may try that. 

Mind you, I often paint with a tiny Cotman set from Winsor & Newton that I converted to regular gouache years ago...but I believe it would be difficult to clean with acrylics because of the deep wells.

There are actually several issues I ran into, which may or may not be because it's acrylic. I normally prefer to let my paints dry, and prewet a little while before painting, whether watercolor or gouache. Obviously, can't do that with acrylics, dry is dry, and done! It's not how a lot of painters work, I know, but I always have, even with big studio paintings--I just don't like fresh squeezed paint.  For me, it doesn't mix as smoothly once I wet it.  So that was something I'd need to get used to, with these...shouldn't be that difficult, I suppose, since I have painted with acrylics almost since they were first invented and dinosaurs roamed the earth!

Another issue is taking care of my brushes...if acrylic dries in the ferrule the brush may never work well again, or be ruined entirely.  When I'm working at home, that's nut much of an issue, as lots of water is available.  For plein air, not so great.  I DO hurry to thoroughly clean my brushes, though, even at home, as soon as I finish my sketch.  I don't use expensive sable brushes with any acrylic, of course.

I am also used to being able to lift, soften, and adjust some once dry, which is not how you work with dry acrylics, obviously.  A whole different way of working.

I find they didn't blend as smoothly even as regular gouache when wet, for whatever reason. Operator error, perhaps!

So it just doesn't seem to suit the way I work overall.  Keep in mind this is COMPLETELY subjective, based on my own experience and expectations.

I DO like that it dries matte rather than the plasticy sheen most acrylics seem to have.  You can frame without glass or sealing, too, another plus.  My friend and fellow artist/author Larry Seiler works more directly, and told me, when I asked how he liked the acrylic gouache compared to regular, which he has mastered, "Since my method of attack is alla prima, I aim to lay a stroke down as is, not to be fussed over (a brushstroke laid is a brushstroke stayed), it seems to work just fine for me."  Larry's work is gorgeous, so I can only agree!

Check out his website at www.larryseiler.com and explore his books, instructional page, and videos on YouTube, interspersed on his channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZDBuvZOvnYw08ReQ2euiLQ !

This is an old bridge near Boonville, Missouri...I'd been wanting to give it a go!

On thing I personally have a problem with is that it encourages more and tighter detail than I'm used to, as in the above sketch.  That could be good, but it felt weird...and somewhat overworked.

I tried for a more direct application this time...

And again, part of the problem may be that I've not yet tried them plein air (see the difficulty of keeping that palette level, above!), and have been working--uncharacteristically for me these days--from photos.  That too can encourage overworking.  When I'm working on the spot, I usually quit when I am tired or uncomfortable!

So, for me:

PROs:

Dries matte, like regular gouache
Intense color
Soft consistency
Won't lift with subsequent layers
Light over dark possible, like regular gouache
Use opaque or transparently
Doesn't need glass or sealing

CONs:

Runny, must be carried flat
That same soft consistency!
Still dry rather differently than they go down, somewhat like regular gouache
Don't blend as readily as regular gouache or watercolor
Won't lift once dry 
Brushes need to be cleaned, immediately
For me, personally, they seem to encourage overworking
 
I will probably continue to explore these paints under a variety of circumstances, but for the present I am more likely to stick with the more traditional forms.   

And that said, my NEXT blog post will be on gouache, in a couple of old-fashioned forms or approaches!

Sketching...again...

A few weeks ago I decided to start a new group on Facebook, called Sketch With Me.  In all honesty, it was in the hopes it would get me focused again.  So much drum and flute building the past couple of years cut into my sketching time--or desire.

It worked.  We have nearly 600 enthusiastic members, and it's been amazing.  AND I'm sketching.

It's to be a monthly (probably) virtual sketch weekend, but of course various of us have posted our work before the event (which was October 20th, this first time) and after...

So...here's what I did for the first event...

This one was out my front window before I ever got up and about...

Across from my little shed studio is a new forest I call The Smallwood...this old house is on the hill above it.  I am loving the autumn colors...

My old Prang box and a #4 quill mop were most useful...

This is the actual view...

Trees added...some of them ayway.

Beyond the Smallwood...

 Then we gathered our gear and headed out to Tryst Falls, a local park with a lovely waterfall...and at this time of year the falls are actually flowing!  Our summer's drought had things down to a trickle.

I chose a bent-nib calligraphy pen for the basic sketch...

My subject...

 

Finished, and pretty happy with it...I love the combination of ink and wash.  (And one of my post popular self-directed mini-classes is on that subject, so I'm guessing others do too!  The link to the class is here.)

I came home and curled up by my chiminea to paint another view of the Smallwood, in gouache on pre-painted paper...that blue was a bit intense!

Just before I called it a day I noticed the sunlight on my neighbor's gorgeous red maple across the street...I could only see a tiny bit of it from where I was, but I liked the contrast...

Tired and hurried, by then, but fun just the same...

Of course since my subject was backlit, I mostly got shadow in the photo!

I have no idea what we'll do next time, but I know there will BE one~