A Sketchbook Flip-Through

The last sketch to finish off my sketchbook

I finished a sketchbook! It only took 6 years! (lol!)

A Sketchbook Flip-Through of Notes and Practice from Two Workshops, 2014-2020

I took a couple of art workshops in 2014 and 2015 and put my notes and drawings into a sketchbook. One workshop was online with urban sketcher Liz Steel and her Foundations class which I highly recommend. The other was a sketching nature workshop with Charlene Freeman held locally.

When I take workshops, I like to copy notes from the class into my sketchbooks and I try to draw every image (except photographs) that may be in the handouts as well as try to do all the suggested exercises from class. Most of the drawings are ink and watercolor. Some are graphite only. I finished the Foundations class in 2015 but the nature workshop had images that I left to finish later. Much later. I have drawings in here dated from 2016, 2017 and then 2020. So this sketchbook was mostly but not all done for years. I’m glad that I finally have finished it!

Here’s a link to see a flip-through of the sketchbook:

A Sketchbook Flip-Through of Notes and Practice from Two Workshops, 2014-2020

The music in the video is Saturday Coffee by William Claeson.

100 Days of Being Creative

For the past 100 days, since February 9th, I have been part of The Creative's Workshop on Akimbo where all participates were challenged to show up daily with something they've worked on, created or thought about. There were days when I didn’t really want to do anything but I showed up so I wouldn’t break my streak.

The Creative’s Workshop has been a great course. Like many things, the more you put in, the more you’ll get out. Creating a creative practice is good, but doing this along side a community of hundreds of like minded people was really the highlight of the workshop for me. Showing up with what I did and then reading about what other people were doing was where it made a difference. People commented on my posts and asked questions to get me to dig deeper. I read about their thought process and what inspired them and what was holding them back. It has been an amazing experience and I highly recommend this workshop.

All that said, here's a record of my hundred days of my creative practice.

I finished 42 drawings and 2 sketchbooks, and made 30 videos during these 100 days. Wow!

Enjoy!

The music is Saturday Coffee by William Claeson

Let me know what workshops you have taken that you were really impressed by and that made a difference for you. I’m always on the look out to learn more.

Watercoloring a Seal from the Antarctic

An Antarctic Seal in Ink and Watercolor

Have you ever seen a photo and been inspired to try to draw or paint it? This is my effort after seeing one of my friend's pictures from a trip she took to the Antarctic. I loved one of the seal pictures she had and she kindly shared the photo with me so I could give it a try.

As you probably know, I work in sketchbooks and do something in one of them everyday. I'm a big believer in keeping and honoring having a creative habit. Working on finishing up this drawing of the seal was today’s effort. I also filmed my painting process and turned that into a video. I have other drawing and painting videos up on my YouTube channel as well.

The video condenses 40 minutes of drawing and painting time into about 6. The seal is done in ink and watercolor. I did the inking of the seal earlier in the week.

The sketchbook I used is a Stillman & Birn Alpha. The watercolors are from Daniel Smith.

The music in the background is At Midnight by Rupert Sachs and At Last Part II by Martin Landh.

https://youtu.be/8Sb6Ns_nBS4

A Collection of Animal Figurines

My sketchbook collection of animal figurine drawings

I made another video today as I added a couple more animal drawings to my collection in my sketchbook. I have a lot of very detailed and fairly realistic animal figurines that I like to pull out every now and then to practice drawing. They move much less than their real counterparts!

Keeping a regular creative habit is something I’ve been doing for the past several years, if not longer. I’m always working on something. I recently started making videos of my drawing process because of prompting from classmates in The Creative’s Workshop. There we are encouraged to post something daily and in a rough form is fine. That has helped me to get over the hurdle of making videos. I used to think they needed to be “perfect” before I would be ready to post or publish them. But with the class, I have been getting better little by little by setting my goals a little bit higher each time as I learn how to do something. Because of that practice I now even have some video lessons ready for live online workshops.

The video is up on YouTube here. You can find my other videos on my YouTube channel under my name.

Do you have any collections you like to draw?

Playing with Paint Splotches Video

I have been thinking that with making my drawing videos, it would be nice to also make some drawing videos to encourage people who don’t feel they can draw. I want people to join in and try some art and to play and explore even if they haven’t done any drawing in years. Life is so very stressful these days, that having some creative outlets where one can be distracted and productive helps calm anxiety and stress.

Here’s my first attempt at that kind of video. It’s playing with paint splotches. It’s a lot like the game of seeing what you can see in cloud shapes. Here you do it with watercolor splotches and a pen.

This kind of thing works for any level of artist or non-artist. There’s no real skill required in making a splotch of paint, and then the drawing can be of imaginary animals or fruits and vegetables, or everyday items, or patterns or zentangles, or doodles.

I got the idea from another artist, Maja Sereda. She does amazing work with ink and watercolor. Check her out.

What kind of arts and crafts do you do when you’re stressed?

Feel free to share as you wish.

Flip-Through Video of My Portugal Travel Journal and Some Time-Lapsed Drawing

The view uphill near the Alfândega in Porto, Portugal.

I continue to work on my art daily and have also continued making videos of my drawing process making progress on various projects.

The video I made here is a combination of a flip-through of my Portugal Travel Journal to show where it is currently at.

In the video I also work on one drawing from a hillside in Porto that was opposite the Alfândega where the International Urban Sketchers Symposium was held in 2018.

Conveniently across the street from this collection of houses with all their windows and doors (and laundry!), there was a short wall that was great for sitting. During the Symposium, there were dozens of people sitting along this wall looking at the view in my photograph. It was so much fun walking down and stopping to look at artists’ sketchbook after sketchbook with so many different styles and approaches.

All of my videos are available for viewing on my YouTube channel. Click here or go to YouTube and search on my name.

Do you have lots of pictures from trips sitting in your phone and not being looked at? Have you ever wanted to make a travel journal with some of your photos? I love travel journals and I love teaching my workshop, Create a Travel Journal in Ink and Watercolor. The next one will be done live online via Zoom starting Tuesday, April 14th, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm Pacific Time. Check out my workshops page for more information and to register.

Pencil drawing of a Moluccan Cockatoo and Video

Pencil drawing of a Moluccan cockatoo

Continuing with my series of drawing videos for my practice and your entertainment, this is from day 40/100 of showing up and shipping something as encouraged by The Creative's Workshop that I've been taking.

I did a pencil drawing here of a Moluccan cockatoo from my self-created animals from "Life of Pi" list (photo courtesy of wikipedia, book by Yann Martel). In the video you may notice that my pencil lines are lighter and sketchier at the beginning as I get started than later after the shape of the bird has emerged. That's totally normal as you get more comfortable with what you're drawing.

Also, this sketchbook is small and square. For this animal series, I've often needed to add additional paper to get all of the animal in. I knew I was going to need some for this bird so I started off with an extra piece already prepared. 😁

The music in the video is the Happy Farmer. The video link to YouTube is: Moluccan Cockatoo in Pencil

Are you working on any animal drawings now? What kind?