Sketch roundup 18.Jul.2016

Some sketchbook pages from the last week or two.  

All the quotes are from the internet, not my original writing.  I don't know who the original sources are, since most of my quotes come from English translations of international facebook pages that pair quotes with photography.

I want to start a travel blog, or maybe slant this one to focus on my drawings and photography of specific places.  It's not exactly within my means right now to fly halfway around the world, so for now, I'm going to practice drawing around where I live.  When I do take that trip, I want to do the best work I can.

Throwing Out Sketchbooks

This is a sketchbook I finished last year.  Should I keep it?  

Serious question.  I always throw out my journals and sketchbooks. I buy the cheapest writing journals I can find because I know they're going to end up in the garbage.  I'm picky about sketchbooks for paper quality, but I still buy them knowing I'm probably going to trash it.  

In 2013, I threw out 15 years' worth of diaries/journals and ~10 years of personal sketchbooks.  I decided that carrying 20lbs of past around with you is dumb, and sacrificed them to the god of the trash chute.  I remember posting about my liberation in a Minimalist facebook group.  My post received an overwhelming response of horror, disbelief, and... my favorite... a chorus of middle aged women saying "you should have kept a few to share with your kids later on."  

Okay, listen up.  1) I am in a committed relationship with the next 20 years of my life.  2) There was nothing in these books that I want to look at again, much less show to the imaginary kids I'm not going to have.  

I have been throwing out my books since.  

I know I should want to keep them, but I don't.  

Okay, so I've kept three sketchbooks from college.  Two are reference books containing class notes and demonstrations, the third is a moleskine I took to Italy when I studied abroad.

I don't think I need to explain why I don't hold onto journals.  Or maybe I do, since aspiring minimalists were shocked that I chucked 'em.  I use journaling as a tool to resolve problems, and I can't think of one single good reason to dedicate space in my home to a list of things that bothered me last year.  My pre-2013 sketchbooks, barring the college stuff, were more or less a diary of low-lights.  Raise your hand if you draw when you're sad.  Keep it raised if looking at those drawings afterward makes you sad. 

As part of my minimalist journey, I made a commitment that I won't hold onto objects with negative associations, including artwork.  I've seen a lot of benefit from this.  Basically, you feel better overall if your home isn't a gallery of negative associations.  Even if you don't consciously realize that the stuff in your house is affecting you emotionally, it is. 

Which brings me to this.  I used this sketchbook from 2013-2015.  I can't decide if I want to keep it or not.  There are some nice breakthrough drawings in here that I care about, like my boats, but there is also some personal content I'd rather be without.  

I'm never going to be one of those artists who has a massive floor to ceiling bookcase full of old sketchbooks lined up neatly with dates on the spines.  I don't think it's necessary to keep every single drawing I do.  My old drawings are not irreplaceable, like a lot of people believe.  I can do another drawing.  In fact, I intend to.  

Maybe I'll keep it for now.  My first boat drawings are in here, and it will be the only past sketchbook I have that isn't school related.  

My Face Is To The Rising Sun

My personal sketchbooks are a bit of a mess-- a mix of bad drawings, good drawings, quotes, collage, and inspirational images pasted in.  I use Handbook journals because the paper can handle some abuse, and they look nice lined up on a shelf.  One of these days I want to try making my own sketchbook from loose sheets of 300lb watercolor paper.  I had a friend in college who made a beautiful travel journal in her bookbinding class and wrapped the cover in a map of the place she was visiting.

My Face Is To The Rising Sun is a small, independently published poetry collection I impulsively bought from a junk shop in Marblehead.  It spoke to me at the time, but the fact is, I have no taste for 1800s poetry with it's rigid, uptight form and strict meter.  It's like cramming words into a cage and expecting them to sing.  Strangely, I wanted to keep the book even though I didn't want to keep it.  I liked the title.  I gently removed the title page and put the rest of the book aside for donation with all of the poetry intact.  I doubt the next person who buys it from a thrift store would notice the absent title page.

Sotoportego (WIP)

A year later, I am still working on this painting, pulling it out when it suits me without any consistent commitment.  It stares at me balefully while I shift it from the back of my coat closet to the space behind my futon to any number of places it's less likely to get in the way, begging to be finished.  I have decided that I'm going to finish it once and for all, hopefully within the next month or so.  I have also decided that I want to get more serious about my painting, moving forward.  

I have been so apprehensive about this painting.  I have never done anything this large before (24"x30") and I'm nervous about messing it up.  Big brushes feel clumsy in my hands, used to small scale work from years and years of practicing illustration.  A couple months ago, I got to a point in the painting where I froze and I wouldn't move forward for fear of making a mess.  I procrastinated  by taking up mixed media collage, learning how to cook, and getting an instagram (@viaoscura) where I post pictures of everything except the painting I'm not finishing.  

It hit me when I woke up this morning.  I sat up and looked at the Leonid Afremov painting hanging across from my bed, and I knew what to do next-- forget the brush and use a palette knife.  If you're painting with a tool that is imprecise by nature, it forces you to loosen up.  Besides, I like the look of palette knife paintings, otherwise I probably wouldn't have put an Afremov street scene in my bedroom.  

(this is the Afremov painting)

I have been reading about minimalism and "decluttering" recently.  Most of the worthwhile books about it specifically call out unfinished projects, explaining that they are a subconscious energy drain in addition to taking up valuable space you could use for something else.  And it's true.  Having a huge pile of half done projects and unread books demanding attention stresses me out so much!  This weekend, I made a list of the unfinished business I'm likely to get to within the next 6 months to a year and ditched the rest.

Projects I Will Actually Finish List!
-This painting
-Crochet projects incl. a hat, scarf, throw pillow, and some gift items I won't list in case an intended recipient is reading
-Processing my photos from Plum Island
-Life size clay head (I'll explain later)
-6 fiction books to read
-3 poetry books to read

It should be a lot easier to focus on visual art without a huge to-do hanging over my head.

Oh, and did I mention that I started doing yoga?  Maybe I'd be better at finishing projects, or even updating this blog, if there weren't so many other interesting things to try.  Only so much time in a day, right?

The Intuition

Ink: Private Reserve Black Cherry

The boats are out!
As the weather turns warm, I like to sit outside and draw the boats in the marina.  Boats fascinate me, from the lowliest kayak to seafaring giants.

Anything that will take you somewhere, really.  Boats, planes, trains, etc, etc.  You get inside, and it takes you somewhere.  Trains don't stand still long enough to draw them and planes, well, the TSA wouldn't like me loitering in airports...

So I draw the boats in the marina.

Easter Painting WIP

Second pass on the painting I started last week.  (Missed it?  Here's the post.)
It's coming together pretty well, I think.  I introduced two new colors and added some depth to the mug/coaster situation.  The handle's a bit wonky, but I can fix that after it dries completely.  Don't like your acrylic painting?  Wait ten or twenty minutes and paint over it.

If you're wondering about my weird paint palette, it is a Fage yogurt lid.  Funny story about that...

I have spent literally hours of my life, possibly even days, scraping paint off a glass palette just to put more paint on it.  One day I got so fed up with it that I grabbed a clear tub lid out of my recycling bin and used that instead of spending another hour in the sink with the glass palette that I'd come to despise.

The yogurt lid worked like a charm, and when it got too cruddy to continue using, I tossed it out and got another.  I still have a bunch of them hanging around, but I've since stopped buying yogurt because dairy isn't Paleo.

So what can I use that is similar to a Fage yogurt lid without buying yogurt...

Clear plastic disposable plates.  The best disposable palette money can buy is 40 cents a pop at most grocery stores.  Take that, "palette paper" pads.


--

Now, it's Easter, and I love everything about peeps except eating them.  Sugar coated sugar with so much food coloring you can actually taste it?  Really?  Why do I like these things?  I usually buy one pack, eat three or four of them, and toss the rest out.  This year, I got a tiny peep plush instead.  He's so nice.  He even stands up on his own.

When I went to move my hydrangea off the glass table (I buy them every year... love the smell) before I could start painting, I noticed a funny lump on the outside of the pot.  I pulled back the paper and found a little green shoot there.

There's a secret daffodil growing out of the hole on the bottom of the pot!  I have never seen a plant do this before.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you're having a wonderful holiday.  If you don't, there's no reason not to enjoy the chocolate!  

I'm Alive! + Painting WIP

Greetings!  

I started a new painting... in acrylic!  I'm going to do a second pass in acrylic with my limited palette, and then finish it in oils to add depth and interest.  It's obvious enough that it's a painting of a coffee cup on a thing with an abstracted background, but my end goal isn't quite so straightforward.  You're just going to have to check back later and see what I do with it.  ;) 

This is the first "direct" painting I've done in a long time; I normally fall back on the Venetian technique.  It's also the first acrylic painting I've done in a long time.  You can tell how much love I've given my acrylics by the fact that I'm still using the long discontinued Finity line.  I also purchased these before I learned enough about pigment to know that Naples Yellow is a pointless color.

Exactly a week ago, I rediscovered my acrylic paints in the middle of a spring cleaning escapade and wondered if I shouldn't just throw them out. I'd become an oil paint convert partway into art college and hadn't touched acrylic since... but then I remembered why I bothered investing in a full set of artist grade acrylic paints in the first place.

It dries in ten or twenty minutes.  It cleans up with plain soap and water.  It handles best with cheapo nylon paintbrushes that I don't need to care about destroying.  I can finish a painting in one sitting if I want to, and if I make a mistake, I just wait for it to dry and paint over it.

I decided to keep the acrylics.

Now, here's why I've been off the artistic grid for so long.
Last fall, I transitioned from working part time with no commute to full time with an hour commute each way, and it has actually taken me these past several months to arrive at a time management routine wherein I can get all the "domestic stuff" done and still have time for my personal pursuits.

I stopped painting because oil paint takes forever.  By the time I set up, it's almost time to put it away again.  Cleanup takes twice as long as setup, and then there's the drying time.  Considering the lack of winter daylight and the fact that I now typically get home from work around 6:30-7pm, I just plain didn't have time for that.  

I got so wrapped up in my love of oils that I forgot why I'd initially foregone them for acrylics.  With a simple change of medium, I suddenly have time to paint again.  (Although daylight savings time also helps.)