Taking an Art Field Trip

My drawing of the Gatehouse at Adamson's Estate. I was mostly interested in the upper floor balcony and the stairs... I just kind of filled in the gardens with marks to suggest the plants. If I had brought colour I might have taken it a bit further.

Adamson's Estate in Port Credit, Ontario,
the grounds turned into a park along the waterfront. A
lovely spotto go and draw. And very close to my home. 

After bemoaning my sad state last week, I felt like I needed to take a step back and figure out a way to do what I love and make a living without burning out. I've taken on too much, and I need a break... I need to refresh myself and remember why I'm doing this in the first place. I love to draw. I love to paint. I know it's something that I need to do to be happy. It's all the other stuff that seems to be taking the fun out of it. 

I've decided that for the next little while I'm not going to be taking on anything new. No shows, no art fairs, no courses. I have already committed to a show in August, which is really just a simple hanging and take down with a few weeks in between. Easy. I've got an application out for a show in October, but I won't even know if I'm doing that one until the end of July. That's it. Other than that, I'm going to be focusing on doing some work just because I want to, and participating in events that I think are going to be fun, not stressful. Hopefully, this will renew my love of all things arty, and give me back that wonderful sense of anticipation before an evening spent in my studio.

You can tell my friend Marion has done this before...
she's got this great set up with a chair, table and bag all
attached with backpack straps to carry it. Everything
portable and in one unit.

I started out this week, planning an outing with a friend to a local spot to draw. It turned out to be a lovely day, and the site she chose was perfectly situated right down by the lake. I've been to this spot before, but never to draw... usually I was with my husband and dogs for our weekly Sunday afternoon long walk. One dog is gone now and the other can't go that far anymore, so its been a while. I had forgotten how lovely it is in the summer. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos here, or I would have. It is very popular for weddings, and I think without making it permit only the place would be over-run with wedding parties in the summer months. I got in a couple drawings (and snuck a couple shots with my phone of little things I wanted to remember), before my stomach started grumbling and I lost concentration. A really nice way to spend a couple hours outdoors in the nice weather.

I found this tree that has the
coolest bark ever. It'll make a
great texture in a background.

I've been reading V Jane Gordon's book on the Artist Inquiry method, so the first thing I did was walk around and do a couple quick drawings of interesting things I found... the texture of bark, the cracks in the old stone, that kind of thing. But eventually I just sat down to draw the buildings, because that's what I felt like doing. I haven't really done much of this since I was in Europe, some 25 years ago. I still have that sketchbook, and I treasure it... and when I flip through it I can remember every site, the people I met and how I felt when I was there. There's something about drawing a subject that burns it into your memory... I really should take a new sketchbook with me on every trip and make a point of filling it with memories. It's hard to do when you're travelling with another person (other than another artist who is doing the same thing), but I'm sure if I wanted to do it, Hubs would find something to keep himself occupied with. He's good like that.

The stairway leading up to the side door of the main house. I could have carried on with this one, but
I was hungry. Once my tummy starts grumbling, I lose all concentration. Time to go home. 

Twitter, Facebook and Blogs

Mike Ayers' sketchbook project work.
Go check out the whole project!

One of my twitter peeps, Mike Ayers, is doing the "Stranger" theme for his sketchbook project this year... and has chosen to paint his twitter followers. I don't use a full photo for my profile, so when he told me I was next I was curious to see what he would come up with. Very creative solution to the problem...
He took my bird painting from a couple weeks ago, and reworked it, adding in my little cropped photo.

I would never have thought of that.

Mike's sketchbook is shaping up nicely... way better than mine, I must say. Right after I posted about what I intend to do I discovered that my dogs had, once again, wrecked havoc in my studio. My poor little sketchbook sustained some damage, but not enough to make it unusable. As if I weren't having enough problems with this particular undertaking... now I have to figure out how to deal with a bunch of chewed pages and a cover missing the bottom corner. Yipee.

Other artists I follow who are doing some interesting things online are Lisa Myers Bulmash and Emily Cline. Lisa has started a Pinterest board for artists who are moms, and Emily and a friend started up a Facebook group where creative people can share what they are working on and get some feedback. I had the pleasure of meeting both these amazing women at Artfest last spring. A fantastic things about the internet... being able to keep in touch with people from all over, and meeting people online that I would probably never have come in contact with otherwise.

My own work this week:
This is a small study on paper that I intend to work into a larger piece on canvas. I like the pose, though something is looking a bit off around her back... I think I need to redraw it and get that shape right. And maybe make the palette a little less blue. Worth taking to the next step, I think.

Finally Starting my Sketchbook Project

I think I've finally figured out what to do with that Sketchbook Project. I have, in my possession, a photo album belonging to my late grandmother. She was a part of my life until my 30s, but I feel like I didn't really know her. And when I look at these photos, I know I didn't. So I've decided to base my project on her. The two themes I was considering were "memoir" and "strangers". This will be a combination of the two.

Drawing from Life

5 minute pose,
drawn entirely with my left hand.

I took a workshop years ago where my instructor insisted that we draw with our non-dominant hand. At the time I was somewhat less than enthusiastic... I had trouble enough getting the drawing down without a lack of control over what kind of marks I was making. The results were interesting though... everything looked different. As someone whose drawings all looked similar, I was intrigued. So I kept at it, and over the years whenever I went to a life drawing session I made sure to do at least one left handed drawing.

Lately I've been having some trouble with my hands. My doctor tells me it's carpal tunnel, caused by excessive time on the computer. What can you do when that's how you pay the bills? I put on a brace, and kept going. Unfortunately this kind of thing just gets worse over time. Now I'm glad I kept up with that left handed drawing... I've got much more control than when I started. And now that I have a bit more time to get back to the life drawing, it's going to come in handy.

Enter that sketchbook project that I've been putting off. So many themes.... how to decide? I've narrowed it down to "Strangers" or "Memoir". I thought I'd let it stew for a week before I decide. I need to gesso the pages anyway, and if you don't let them dry between spreads they stick together and make a mess when you pull them apart. In the meantime I went off to a life drawing class and found a stranger to draw. I think I'm going to do the whole book as a lefty. It's different and experimental, and I think that's the whole point of the project.

30 minute pose, drawn with both hands alternating. I think the artist parked beside me thought I was a little nuts.

Final 30 minute pose, also drawn with both hands. After 3 hours I was feeling much more comfortable.

The Sketchbook Project?

For those who have never heard of it, The Art House Co-op in Brooklyn, NY, runs this thing every year called "The Sketchbook Project". Basically, as a participating artist, you sign up, pay your fee, and they send you a book that you then fill up with drawings or whatever, and send back to them. They take the collection on a "tour" around the country (this is the US, though I believe there is a stop in Toronto and possibly in Vancouver as well), and it is digitized into their online library. I have never participated in this... mainly because I hadn't heard about it until last year, but also because I don't consider myself to be an artist who "sketches".

I paint, I draw, I doodle, I record.... I don't sketch (there are exceptions, but for the most part, no). I was forced to keep a sketchbook for my art classes when I was in school, which I then had to hand in to be marked... and critiqued. The critique part was, to me, not only unnecessary, but completely defeated the purpose of keeping the book in the first place. I wanted to use it to explore ideas, not necessarily improve my drawing skills, though I'm sure having to draw daily did actually improve my drawing skills a great deal. The concept of having a deadline to fill up a sketchbook sounds like work. Yuck. And what I put in a sketchbook these days... well, not something anybody but me would want to browse through.

my version of a sketchbook...

After looking through what was posted from last years project, I think I have to broaden my definition of what a sketchbook is. It was the art journals I saw online that helped changed my outlook. Beautiful, handmade books of paintings, collage... even encaustic. Some had flaps and foldout pages, maps, photographs. Creative little books that really express who the artist is and what interests them. Something like that is a little more my speed. So, this year, I am going to participate. If you are interested, go check it out. There is a cute little video posted by the Art House Co-op, which explains the whole project in 96 seconds. It's worth looking at. And you might even want to add your name to the list.