Sketchy

In church

This is the second year I’ve bought into the Sketchbook Project and then felt my muse desert me as soon as the package arrived in the mail. It’s ironic, because I carry a sketchbook everywhere I go, a habit that started in elementary school.

My school notekeeping was a total fail from an academic standpoint—full of drawings, with notes occupying a very minor role. My current sketchbooks look exactly the same.

I now realize that drawing in school allowed me to cope with undiagnosed ADHD at a time when school was extremely regimented and bad behaviour still punishable with a ruler to the knuckles. And I received my share of thwacks for drawing in class, believe me. But as a parent and painting teacher, I encourage both my children and students to do the same thing. Unfortunately, most teachers are still opposed to it.

I know it works (as long as the information being presented is verbal and not visual). For some reason, it’s perfectly possible for the mind to listen, learn and retain a lecture while drawing something entirely unrelated.

For me, drawing takes the place of the anxious fidgeting that is part of ADHD. Educators have begun to recognize that allowing such kids to move paradoxically makes concentration easier. But they don’t generally recognize that drawing can achieve the same goal.

I bring my sketchbook to church, to appointments, on errands—in short, anywhere there’s a possibility I will cool my heels. I make no pretence to style, and don't think about content or composition. (To do otherwise would interfere with my listening.) My goal is simply to record what I see. It’s totally process-based; I never think of the sketches as anything other than practice strokes or visual notes. Which may be why the Sketchbook Project never works for me: it can’t help but turn process into product.

(L-R) In a pinch, you can always draw your own jacket thrown over a chair; couple in church; gesture drawing of horse at Walnut Hill.

(L-R) Or, you can draw your non-dominant hand; people almost always have a few ears hanging around; patient at the neurologist's office.

(L-R) Quick value study of a path (I could paint it from this); man in church; my son's big foot, at the pediatrician's office.

(L-R) I've pretty much mined my dentist's office for subject matter, but there's always the woodwork; poofy gown from a shopping excursion; man in church.

Judging watercolor sketchbooks and paintings

Grey is a beautiful color, but it doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Neither does weak design.

Jonathan Submarining is one of my all-time favorite paintings, but it didn't impress jurors overmuch.

I’ve promised several readers I’d get back to them about my sketchbook choice for my Age of Sail workshop. I’m supplying the materials, so they must be good. I wanted to talk to Mary Byrom before I reported back. She teaches a sketchbook class in York, ME. Our technique is not the same; she works mainly in pen-and-wash; I prefer straight-up watercolor. But there’s overlap, especially when the problem is keeping supplies contained for travel.

                                           

We agreed that the top sketchbook we’d tried was Strathmore’s Series 400 watercolor journals. While I prefer ring bindings, this notebook’s soft backing made it possible to hold back pages with clips. I’m a very wet watercolor painter, so if I can use it, nobody will have a problem.

And the winner is, the Strathmore 400 series watercolor journal and a clip.

That was the last fifteen minutes of a two-hour phone call. Most of it was spent on that eternal question: how to choose the best paintings to submit for jurying. My strategy has always been to put my top work from the prior year into a folder and look at it and whine.

I’m drawn to the paintings in which I perceive a struggle. An example is Jonathan Submarining, which I painted at Castine Plein Air. This is one of my personal favorites. Poppy Balser and I had our feet in Penobscot Bay. The kids in their sailing class were rampaging about in a stiff wind. It was hard work to be accurate while capturing their excitement. Apparently, jurors did not share my enthusiasm. I didn’t get into many shows for which I used it.

Lobster Pound at Tenants Harbor is well-drafted and strong, but I don't think its grey tones will work for jurying. (Courtesy the Kelpie Gallery)

All of us have emotional connection with our work. It distorts how we see things. To overcome this, I traded the final-pick task with Bobbi Heath. She reviews my submissions; I review hers.

Mary Byrom and I came up with another strategy. Next year, I’ll create a folder containing my own best picks alongside paintings by artists with whom I will be competing to get in. (If you don’t know who these people are, you haven’t done your homework.) I did a snap search after our conversation. It was sobering.

Fish Beach, by Carol L. Douglas.

It’s all about design and composition, which is why value sketches are such a necessary step in plein air. Aline Ordman said that a painting must compel at 300 feet, 30 feet and 3 feet. The 300-feet test is the same as the thumbnail-on-the-screen test. Depending on the popularity of the show to which you’re applying, the jurors may be looking at thousands of the little buggers. If your painting doesn’t stand out as a thumbnail, it’s not going to compel at any size.

Color matters, too. Grey just slumps back into my monitor. There are some paintings in my folder that are strong, but I won’t be using them for future submissions. Nor will I design a composition around neutrals for an auction-based event, for the same reason. Lovely grey tones sell just fine; they just don’t stand out in the maelstrom.

It's about time for you to consider your summer workshop plans. Join me on the American Eagle, at Acadia National Park, at Rye Art Center, or at Genesee Valley this summer.

Experimenting

Cloud moving in over Oxbow Outlet, Oil on canvasboard, 16X20

I stopped to see my pal Jamie Grossman last week, and we fell into a conversation about sketchbooks. We both use them religiously, but (unlike Jamie) I tend to use the cheapest sketchbooks available and fill them with scribbled notes. Ever generous, Jamie gave me a Stillman & Birn Alpha Series sketchbook and suggested I try using it with watercolors, gel pens, acrylics, or ink instead of simply drawing with a pencil or graphite stick.

Sketch #1, from the seat of my car.

Jamie does lovely sketchbooks that hover on the line of being artist’s books—very lovely, very lively. I’m not interested in going there, but I can see the value in doing color sketches instead of pencil sketches. And all mental stretches are a good thing, right?

Balanced sketchbook on top
of my pochade box. 

I like to sketch whenever I have to sit, so I brought it with me to church last Sunday. However, a dynamic young rapper named CuevasWalker was preaching, and he defied capture in any form except the loosest gesture drawing.

I am in a self-imposed hermitage this week, which seems like the perfect opportunity to test Jamie’s idea. I brought only a #2 pencil and a Cotman pocket watercolor kit (with its one brush). My reasoning is that if my sketch kit expands beyond what I can put in my pocket, it’s useless.

Sketch #2. I still can't bring myself to
paint across the spread like Jamie does...

Obstacle number one was apparent as soon as I reached my location: sketchbooks don’t fit on easels; they need to be balanced. My first sketch, therefore, was done from the driver’s seat of my trusty Prius—and I worked very fast because I was parked in a fire lane.

I tried again, balancing the sketchbook on top of my pochade box. That worked just fine, but I don’t think this sketch told me more about my composition than a pencil drawing would have.

Bug repellent... a necessity in
the spring in the Adirondacks.

Then I moved to oils. And that ended up being one of those transcendent experiences where one is totally engrossed in the process of painting, and whether it turns out well is immaterial (although, looking at these sketches, I do wish I'd worked from my original vantage point). 

I will try this process again today. Marilyn Fairman joins me to paint for two days. I’m both excited to paint with her and sad to see the solitude end.

P.S. Sorry about my month's absence. We were marrying off our eldest, and that was an amazing project in itself, one which left no time for other creative ventures.

The place itself...

Be prepared!

With a sketchbook, even the Emergency Room is tolerably interesting. This, from last month's visit.

Yesterday morning I struggled up out of sleep to the sound of my phone ringing. My second oldest child was taking her turn with the collywobbles-sans-merci and needed a doctor. Without thinking much about it, I threw my clothes on my back, my backpack in my car, and slipped down the Thruway to Buffalo.

Any place people are sitting, there's a drawing waiting to happen.

I drill into my kids that they should carry a scraper, candle, matches,  chocolate or energy bar, small folding shovel, and an extra jacket or blanket in their car. The deaths in Buffalo last month should be a reminder that this is not just motherly paranoia, but a reality for America’s snow belt.

You will never be bored, or at least not impossibly bored.

I’m going to add one thing to my own list: a sketchbook. Even though I’m an old pro at hospitals, the before-dawn phone call rattled me, and I didn't check to be sure it was in my backpack. I spent nine hours in waiting rooms, and all I could find to draw on was my own eyeglasses prescription.

Neither waiting room had magazines, which were, in my day, the last refuge of the terminally-bored person. They’ve apparently been replaced by large television sets. Daytime TV is shockingly bad. I might have already known this except that when I’m in waiting rooms, my practice is to burrow in with my pencil, drawing the passing parade.

And occasionally, waiting rooms contain delightful surprises, like this elegant skeleton.

Let that be a lesson to me. Be prepared. Make sure my sketchbook is always in my backpack where it belongs.

Oh, and my daughter is doing fine, thanks.

Remember, you’ve got until December 31 to get an early-bird discount for next year’s Acadia workshop. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here. 

Art that moves me

These are my cousin’s Black Angus, on his farm in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia.  This photo actually took first place in a county fair art contest, so I can legitimately say I’m an international award-winning artist.

Yesterday I was looking at paintings by friends on Facebook. When I’m just “browsing the catalogue” in this way, the art that interests me is often aspirational. For example, last week, I found myself lingering over paintings with a hint of spring color. It’s been a brutally long winter and I long to see the shrubs and trees leaf out.

Of course, one man’s banality is another man’s inspiration. There was a time when I was fascinated by the glacial eskers and bogs in the landscape here. After twenty years spent living on the hip of a glacial moraine, I have to admit they no longer fascinate me so much.

Black Angus painted through a fence somewhere in New Jersey. You've got just a few minutes to get cow to canvas; don't fret about the details and keep on crooning. (By little ol' me.)

So what am I finding inspirational this spring? Oddly enough, it’s cows.

They say there are horse people and there are cow people. I think that’s nonsense; I’ve kept both, and both have their place. But it’s easier to paint a cow than a horse, because it’s easier to sucker a cow than a horse.  If you stand at a fence crooning, cows will almost always walk up to try to figure you out. And they’ll spend enough time doing it that you can quickly splash a few dots of paint down and capture the essence of their cowness.

These fellows are on Sweets Corners Road in Penfield.

In contrast, you’d better bring a sketchbook and pencil if you want to try the same trick with horses. Oh, they’ll be interested in you, but horses are wilier. Either my song repertoire needs work or they have more sophisticated taste than cows. They’ll come to the fence and crop grass, but they’ll never relax, and they’ll never stay in one place long enough to get paint on the canvas. But you can get decent drawings of horses this way, if you move fast.

When I was a youngster, Western New York was dotted with dairy farms; sadly, most of them are now gone, and the ones that remain keep their cows inside. The best place to see dairy cows now is in the barns at the New York State Fair. There’s not enough room for an easel, but you can bring your sketchbook. A resting dairy cow, carefully groomed and loved by her teenage 4-H keeper, is as beautiful as an odalisque, and probably a better conversationalist.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Another Roadside Attraction

Sketch of a commercial building somewhere in Binghamton, NY, done from a diner window. Sadly, I could never find it again, and they had really good pie.

Yesterday I was flipping through a used-up sketchbook, and came across this little watercolor done many years ago. It’s another roadside scene en route to New York City; however, this one wasn't memorized across the steering wheel.

I spent several years driving back and forth to the Art Students League from Rochester. I had a little bolt-hole near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and a Ford Windstar wagon. (Gas was cheaper then.) I drove that route through snowstorms, ice, and flooding , which in the Susquehanna River watershed is the most terrifying of driving conditions. When I was too bleary to drive, I would pull off in a rest stop and sleep in the back of my van.

One early Spring evening, the Windstar died with a colossal bang in that no-man’s-land between Binghamton, NY and Scranton, PA. The tow-truck driver set me down at a diner where I sat with my sketchbook and pondered the situation. All’s well that ends well: I got a cheap hotel room, sold the carcass to the tow-truck operator for $600, and went to New Jersey to test drive one of them new-fangled Priuses.

The trip to Maine is more interesting driving than the Rochester-Manhattan loop. If you're interested in joining us for a fantastic time in mid-Coast Maine this summer, check here for more information. There's still room in my workshops.

It is what it is...

Cartoon for an oil painting of Dr. Bernard Plansky removing my surgical staples.

By the time you read this, I will be snoring softly under a general anesthetic while the very gifted Dr. Eugene P. Toy takes a sharp knife to my innards.

This is my sixth surgery in fourteen years. If a stranger told me that, I’d think either he was suffering from Münchausen syndrome or had had so much plastic surgery that he ought to look as good as Michael Jackson.  But neither is true here. Nor am I particularly worried. This is a horrible clanger in my schedule, but I’m confident that I’m in God’s hands.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go. That includes not just nail polish, but greyscale markers, drawing paper, and a sketchbook. And my list of paintings.

I did the above cartoon after a memorable day with our family doctor, Dr. Bernard Plansky, in 2000. (He’s the guy responsible for catching my first cancer after an internist and gastroenterologist missed it; if you object to my presence here, take it up with him.) Rather than drive back to Roswell Park to have my staples removed, I asked him to do it.

He had a resident with him whose job was basically to hold my hand to stop me from whining. Dr. Plansky asked if the resident could pull a few staples for the experience. I’m all for apprenticeship, so of course I said yes. But my deal was that I got to remove one myself. The great blessing of my life is that even the darkest times end up being a little absurd, and thus filled with laughter.

I  made canvases for my spring show before my hospitalization. That's nine large linen canvases in the back, and bunch of sketch boards in the front. They'll be totally dry by the time I get home. I plan just to draw in hospital, but if they don't spring me fast enough, I'll bring in contraband art supplies.

I never painted this self-portrait, but I still like the idea. However, it has to wait until I’m done with my current project. To that end, I’ve made nine beautiful big linen canvases. I’ve toned them and my sketch boards. They’ll be thoroughly dry when I get home. I’ve packed my sketchbook and my greyscale markers. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Monday Morning Art School: sketching with Inktense pencils

Inexpensive, portable, and way fun, you can use watercolor pencils anywhere you normally sketch.

One advantage of being a lefty is that nobody borrows your scissors.

I use Derwent Inktense pencils to draw my sketches in field paintings. On a gessoed board, you can erase with a damp cloth. When you start laying oil paint down, the watercolor drawing freezes in place. I’ve been doing this for so many years, I’d forgotten why I bought the pencils in the first place. That is, until Mary Byrom reminded me last week that they’re great for pocket drawings and value studies.

This and a multimedia sketchbook is all you need to carry.

I buy them in packs of six in burnt sienna and ultramarine. This is a warm-and-cool combination that makes great neutrals in every medium. I use it for watercolor value studies and for my dark neutrals in oil colors. I can flip from warm to cool instantly with this mix, making it perfect for setting darks.

I always start with a pencil sketch.

The simplest (and most important) value study looks at the ways in which you can translate an image into simple black and white. At the same time as you’re thinking about black and white, you can also think about cool vs. warm. This is the modern, post-impressionist way of looking at value.

All light has color. An overcast sky has a color temperature of about 10,000K (blue). A room lit by candles has a color temperature of about 1,000K (orange). The most neutral light is sunlight at noon.

This photo of Mission San Jose in San Antonio starkly demonstrates the color of light. All the walls are white.

Of course, the ambient light color is also affected by the objects it’s bouncing off. I took the photo above in Mission San Jose in San Antonio to demonstrate this. The walls are white, but there was incandescent light above the loft. The lower part of the room was lit by daylight or in shadow. The effect was to make it appear that the room had been painted in blue and gold.

An aqua-flow brush is the easiest way to move Inktense around.

The color of shadow is always the complement of the color of the light. Of course, this is all mutated by the color of the objects being lit. A red sphere in warm light will appear crimson in the light spots and more purplish in the shadows. That’s just red mixed with orange light and blue shadows. We simplify matters by saying that if the light is cool, the shadows are warm and vice-versa.

The principle's the same whether the light is warm or cool, as long as it is consistent and matches reality.

Inktense pencils allow you to add in color temperature as you think about value. Ignoring their actual color and modeling, I made a simple contour drawing of my sewing scissors. I set the lighter half of my value range in blue. It’s simple to soften Inktense with a water-brush. Just fill it and run it over your pencil drawing. When that was done, I added my shadows in burnt sienna. You can get fairly intense darks with Inktense pencils.

Two different Inktense pencils can take you almost anywhere.

My fantasia was hardly inspired, but I’ve included it to show you how much depth you can get out of Inktense pencils. You can buy two Inktense pencils, a water-flow brush and a small pad of watercolor paper for around $20. The combination is no bigger than a sketchbook and pencil.

ADDENDUM: Susan Hanna points out that Derwent doesn't have those color names. I should have checked first. My burnt sienna WAS a color called Venetian Red; they don't market it as that any more. Try Red Oxide. Try Deep Blue for ultramarine. Once again, caught in the trap of romance naming for pigments.

SECOND ADDENDUM: Another reader mentions that Inktense pencils are fugitive. She prefers Caran d'Ache watercolor pencils. I've not tried them so can't comment.

It's about time for you to consider your summer workshop plans. Join me on the American Eagle, at Acadia National Park, at Rye Art Center, or at Genesee Valley this summer.

Monday Morning Art School: Gel Pen and a Water Brush

Everything you need for pen-and-wash will balance comfortably on your lap, thanks to modern technology.

A fifteen-minute pen-and-wash sketch.

I slipped my sketchbook in my purse before church, only to find when I got there that my pencil had apparently been eaten by a bear. It was useless. That left me scraping around the bottom of my backpack, where I found a Uni-Ball gel pen and a tiny sample card from Turner Watercolours.

Recently, pen manufacturers have started offering fraud protection technology. This is because of a new form of crime called ‘check washing.’ That’s a kind of identity theft where ink is removed from a check and the check is reused. In response, pen makers have created waterproof and acetone-proof pens. Good luck getting the ink out of your clothes, but it’s a boon for artists looking for inexpensive, waterproof pens for pen-and-wash drawings.

Initial drawing.

There’s a tiny, unremarkable, ranch-style house across the road from our church. It’s best to practice drawing everyday objects. If you can get the composition and pattern of lights and darks right on a prosaic little house, you stand a much better chance of getting them right at Niagara Falls or some other equally-grand place. In painting, the composition should always come first.

Without a pencil, I couldn’t even put hashmarks on my paper. Sometimes flying without a net is a good thing, though. You’re stuck with your decisions. I laid out a simple line drawing, and then massed my dark shapes in with the pen.

More darks.

Pen drawing is supposed to be fast, and eyeing up proportions is a learned skill, just like reading. If you’re an absolute beginner, you might want to do a measured drawing of the building on another page first, in pencil. Then close that page and work fast on another page. Your mind’s eye will remember the proportions. If you have no idea where to start with that, do this exercise first.

My pal Mary Byrom teaches a wildly successful weekly class in southern Maine called The Traveling Sketchbook.  We occasionally compare materials for our classes. It was Mary who reminded me of the versatility of the lowly waterbrush pen. The genius of these brushes is that they eliminate the need to carry water separately. 

I watched Richard Sneary, who is one of America's top watercolorists, using the same waterbrush pen with watercolor pencils to do a value sketch at Parrsboro. That's a technique I use and teach. If that kind of value study is important for him, it's doubly important for the rest of us.

As far as I want to go with the pen. Now to find some color.

There are many makers of waterbrush pens. They’re cheap and I have a few tucked here and there, including at the bottom of my backpack.

My 'watercolor kit' for this project. You can do better.

I didn’t have a watercolor kit handy, but I could still mix paint on the sample card and fill in the big shapes with color. I really recommend that you carry a small watercolor kit instead, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Everything you need for this exercise will balance comfortably on your lap. That’s a big improvement over pen-and-wash of the past. We used to need a pen holder, nibs, a bottle of ink, watercolors, a brush, a water bottle and a cup.

Voila! You’ve just done your first pen-and-wash drawing. This is another simple way to make a sketch without dragging around a ton of supplies, and it’s a good way to work in advance of a bigger painting.

Of course, the other—probably more common—way to do pen-and-wash is to start with the watercolor painting and enhance it at the end with the pen. That’s a technique for creating more finished work, often used in illustration. It’s usually done on a hard paper like Bristol board or hot-press watercolor paper.

I’ve got one more workshop available this summer. Join me for Sea and Sky at Schoodic, August 5-10. We’re strictly limited to twelve, but there are still seats open.

Monday Morning Art School: How to make time to make art

Having trouble finding time to get anything done? We all are.

Commit to working with others, either in a class, a group, or a workshop. It will jumpstart your process.

These days, I’m turning over my guest room as fast as the Starlight Motel down the street is turning over theirs. Not well, I might add; my brother tells me I’m in danger of losing my five-star rating. Even though I strongly discourage guests in the high season, there are still people whom I want to see.

Not having enough time to make art isn’t a unique problem. It’s something I hear from other artists in every station of life. Jobs, children, parents, spouses or homes aren’t time-killers; they’re the very fabric of our lives. Still, too often we go to bed realizing we’ve done no actual artwork that day.

Schedule studio time. If you work at the same time every day, you spend less mental energy waiting for inspiration to kick in—you just dive in and do it. That’s more than a mental trick. Your body and mind crave routine. Working on art at the same time every day makes it easier to transition into the flow zone.

Take a class. They’re fun, social, advance your skills, and—just like joining the gym—you have money riding on your involvement.

Keep the set-up to a minimum. I keep my palettes in the freezer so I can paint in small increments. I sometimes work in watercolor when I don’t have time to set up in oils. I draw when I can’t do either.

I've been recording the passing scene in sketchbooks forever. I wasn't always kind.

Put down your cell phone and pick up your sketchbook. Draw in meetings, classes and church—it won't lower your comprehension much. I’ve written about the importance of sketching many times; it separates good artists from mediocre ones.

Make work a habit. Set aside a half hour a day and use it to make some kind of art. You really can cement a habit by doing it for a month.

A small amount of time with a sketchbook can yield wonderful results.

Cut out the screen time. Even with the decline in TV watching, Americans average about eleven hours a day in front of some kind of screen. You might find that all the time you need to make art can be found just by deleting the Facebook app. (Just be sure to subscribe to this blog before you do it! The sign up box is at the top right.)

Make a studio. If you don’t have a room to dedicate to art, make a studio in a corner of your bedroom or some other underutilized space. Having a dedicated, organized work space cuts down on the set-up time each time you want to work.

Find a corner somewhere where you can leave your project up.

Make art a social activity. Join a figure-drawing or plein air group. There’s accountability in committing to work with someone else.

Run away from home. Apply for a residency somewhere. Even a week of focused work, sans family, can be great for your development. I’ll be doing one at the Joseph Fiore Art Center this September.

The dreaded deadline. I hesitate to recommend this, even though the best way I know to chain myself to my easel is to commit work for a show. Yes, deadlines make you finish things. However, they’re corrosive to body and soul. Better to just develop good work practices.

Be patient with yourself

I had cancer at age 40. Since then health issues have played a much larger role in my life. I’m always infuriated by being sick, because I like to keep busy. But if you’ve just had a baby or are recovering from pneumonia, you’re not going be efficient. Be patient. Just as you have to walk a little farther every day to regain fitness, you need to slowly reform your work schedule.

I’ve got one more workshop available this summer. Join me for Sea and Sky at Schoodic, August 5-10. We’re strictly limited to twelve, but there are still seats open.