The Sketchbook Challenge Book

As many of you know, I've been participating in a blog called The Sketchbook Challenge, organized by Sue Bleiweiss.  On the blog we offer tutorials, themes, and inspiration to help readers work in their sketchbooks.  Sue has written a book based on many of the ideas generated on the blog, "The Sketchbook Challenge: Techniques, Prompts, and Inspiration for Achieving Your Creative Goals".

 

 I am delighted to be included in the book.  Each chapter is based on a theme, and my theme was "Patterns and Grids".  Here are a few photos of my sketchbook on that theme:

 

  

And a couple of finished pieces based on my sketchbook explorations.  These are each 11"x15":

 

This blog hop is sponsored by lots of generous manufacturers of art supplies.  When you comment on this post, you have a chance to win an 8"x10" gel plate from GelliArts.  Go here for my little video demonstration on using the gel plate.  I will choose a winner at random on July 7.

Additional sponsors include:
Mistyfuse, Art Plantae Today, Joggles, Sue Pelland Designs, The Thread Studio, Blue Twig Studio, The Artist Cellar, and ProChemical and Dye.

For the complete blog hop schedule go here.  Hope you enjoy it!

Sketchbook Practice Online

I've been having a ball with my Sketchbook Practice workshop here in Vermont, and enough of you expressed interest in an online version that I am now offering that as well, starting on April 4.  We will do some drawing practice, collage doodles, ink doodles, self-portraits, and generally give our ideas room to percolate and play.

 

Give your art practice a boost this spring and join The Sketchbook Practice Workshop online. Or just get out your sketchbook, make a pot of tea, and draw something, play with paint, collage, or explore the media of your choice.  See my tutorials or The Sketchbook Challenge Tutorials, or just go to the Sketchbook Challenge blog for some inspiration.

Ink Doodles

This month's theme on the Sketchbook Challenge is Doodling, so I've been challenging my own thoughts on the topic. You may have seen my post on Collage Doodles on the Sketchbook Challenge.


I particularly liked Lyric Kinard's post in which she raises the question: is it a doodle or a sketch? I question the value of doodling when you know where you are going with it. If your goal is to fill in a particular shape with a particular repeated mark, then where is the effort? Where is the challenge that brings you someplace new? I wouldn't claim that this is not valuable at all - it may be soothing, calming, and relaxing, and thus have therapeutic value - but you get a lot more bang for your creative buck when you don't know where you are going, and you "doodle" to find out.

Off my soap box now, here is a video on how I did a couple of ink doodles:



Here is the ink doodle over collage in the first example:


And then I wrecked it with some paint. I mean, I like the original one better, but this is my sketchbook and I am trying new stuff. At some point I will add more to this page, but that's not important now.


And here is the second example from the video:

This ink doodle was done over a long forgotten page in my sketchbook. Looks like and abandoned random collage.

And after playing around with a bit of paint:

Go to The Sketchbook Challenge to see more examples of my ink doodles, and check out the other posts about doodling.

2012 Sketchbook Challenge

I'm sure that many of you are aware of The Sketchbook Challenge, a blog that I co-host with a fabulous group of artists, and the brain child of Sue Bleiweiss. Well, we're in for another year of monthly themes, tutorials, artist profiles, and creative inspiration.

We've heard from a few of our 2011 readers that they have compiled their sketches from the challenge. Take a look at Alarmcat Studio, who spread out all her work from the Sketchbook Challenge 2011 themes:


And Linda Kittmer's Sketchbook Challenge Journal:

We have two new hosts for The Sketchbook Challenge this year: Pam Carriker and Susan Brubaker Knapp. I look forward to seeing more of their work!

January's Sketchbook Challenge theme is Doodling, by Diana Trout. What a fun way to ease into your 2012 sketchbook practice!

We also have an updated Tutorials page with loads of free instructions on drawing, textile arts, book arts, and way way more.

So check it out, and participate if you like, or just ogle the eye candy on our flickr site.

Happy new year!

Percolating and Playing

A comment from one of my Text and Image students inspired me to address the issue of giving ideas time to percolate. Here is what she said about the last lesson, which involved making a series of small collages that tell a story:

[This exercise] reinforced my sense that ideas need time to percolate before being expressed. I had been thinking about the assignment for days, so when I had time to work on it, everything just flowed.

I find I definitely need some percolating time, but this does not mean sitting around doing nothing while waiting for it all to come together seamlessly. For me, it is the struggle that seems to work: I have a few sessions of wrestling (or playing) with ideas and materials, when it all seems so "out there" and unresolved. Then, after a break (usually of working on something else or at least doing a little housekeeping in the studio) I come back to the piece(s) and it DOES all come together.

I used to find this period of unresolved work so frustrating and even debilitating - I was sure I'd never have a worthy idea or make a good piece of art; I was sure that for real artists it can't be nearly this hard or frustrating. Now, however, I have made friends with this part of the creative process, and I consider it fun, playful, and necessary. I embrace the open-ended aspect of it, and I don't worry whether a piece will resolve itself or not.

Playing with Pouring Paint

Since making a regular practice of using my sketchbook, I do lots of playing in it, purposely pushing myself off-balance and mixing things up, posing unsolvable visual questions just for fun! It has made my art practice SO much more enjoyable, and maybe even more productive! I have totally let go of the idea that something has to be resolved and finished, and it has made me more open to taking risks and pushing through the boundaries of habit.

Throwing Myself Off Balance

For daily inspiration to work in your sketchbook, check out the Sketchbook Challenge, or just consider a New Year's (or Solstice, or Holiday) gift to yourself to take a few minutes each day to play with paint, drawing, collage, or stitch, whatever your medium of choice.

Circles (which have ended up all over my work)

Percolating and playing are inextricably related. DOING, engaging in the process, is what keeps you fresh, keeps the ideas flowing, and facilitates the lovely surprises and discoveries of making art.

Sketch-In and Sketchbook Practices

Since The Sketchbook Challenge began last January I've been thinking about how I use and don't use a sketchbook. What is a sketchbook? How do artists use them? How is it different from an "art journal"? These are questions I've pondered over the year without forcing any answers.

To express your thoughts on the topic, click here to take a brief survey.

At Ink About It over the weekend, Sue Bleiweiss and I conducted a Sketch-In. We did lots of drawing exercises:

Then worked with watercolor, experimenting with materials:


And working from still life:
On the second day we painted papers:

Using various brands and types of acrylic paint:
Look at us all having FUN!
Here I am demonstrating something brilliant, I'm sure:

And this is Sue Bleiweiss with Lori, one of the owners of Ink About It.
Then Sue gave us a great little tutorial on making a quick and easy hard-cover book. She brought book kits for everybody, and people used their painted papers for covers and end-papers. What a creative and productive weekend! Check out Sue's free projects to find this book tutorial and many others.

Working in Series

As you may know, I am a big fan of working in series. I almost always work on pieces in groups, and give my ideas room to breathe. Here is a short series I did a few months ago based on a composition idea. I started with a sketch and a group of painted papers, some notion of color, and went from there. I wouldn't say any of these is necessarily a finished piece, but together they represent my exploration of an idea that may or may not "work".

Composition Study 1

Composition Study 2

Composition Study 3

Composition Study 4

I have written an article for the new Sketchbook Challenge e-Zine on Working In Series. The rest of the zine is filled with ... oh, I will let you check it out here on the blog.

Using Found Text

I'm back in the studio for a bit making some new collages. These are made using junk mail and discarded paperback covers (well, I scanned some of the covers and printed them out so I could use them over and over again). They are influenced by two artists I've recently discovered on Flickr, Melinda Tidwell and Kurt Nimmo, both of whom use various forms of found text to make brilliant collages. I also posted these on The Sketchbook Challenge blog as my contribution to this month's theme, Everyday Objects. Paperbacks and junk mail seemed appropriate materials for this theme.

Cultural Literacy

Cultural Literacy 2

The Shape You're In

Chapter 5 in Collage Journeys is about using text in collage, a subject I'm recently revisiting. I will be offering a class locally here in Vermont on the use of text and image in collage, and will also be offering a version of it online starting in October. Don't worry, I will scream and shout about this new online offering - on the blog and e-mail - as soon as I have it nailed down. Thanks for visiting!

Introducing Priscilla Read

I have been posting less frequently because I am happily busy with my online classes, Keys to Dynamic Composition and Unlocking the Secrets of Color. I'll be back to posting more regularly in a few weeks, definitely from Art Unraveled, where I'll be teaching on August 8th and 9th.

So, since I'm not doing a lot of new tutorials just now, I thought I would introduce you to one of the creative people taking my COLOR class, Priscilla Read. Check out her blog to view her fabulous quilts, drawings, paintings, and collage. She has been posting some gorgeous pieces in the class!

Here are a few pieces from our color class exploring paint and collage in specific color schemes.


In addition to taking my color class, Priscilla is also following the Sketchbook Challenge, with which I have been involved. I asked Priscilla a few questions about her art background and practice:

How did you get started in quilting?

I did a bit of quilting starting in 1976 when my son was born, then started back up when my father was in a nursing home in 1999. I made him a small quilt from a pattern in a quilting magazine. I immediately joined a quilt guild and learned everything I could about quilting. I served as a workshop coordinator for a couple years and took workshops in every technique possible from traditional to contemporary.





I see that you have the Sketchbook Challenge badge on your blog; what inspired you to follow the Sketchbook Challenge?

I follow blogs of some of the artists hosting the Sketchbook Challenge. Through those connections I happened upon the Sketchbook Challenge blog earlier this month. I intermittently draw and paint in a sketchbook or art journal, but haven’t kept it as a regular practice. The challenge themes interest me and the blog pages are filled with ideas and tutorials to jumpstart you if you get stuck. I like that the definition of a sketchbook and sketching is pretty open and includes any media and format. I like the idea of using the challenge as an opportunity to explore a new medium and as a place to share ideas with others.

How has the Sketchbook Challenge influenced your creative process?

I guess I’m not far enough along to say, but I expect it will open up new ways to express my creativity.



What role does color play in your work?

When I started as a quilter, I gravitated to traditional colors. As I learned more, my color palette expanded to include all colors from dull to highly saturated. I use contrast to make the color “sing”.

What drew you to take a workshop in color?

I’ve taken workshops for quilters in color and have done color exercises using both paint and fabric, but haven’t used both at once for color experiments in an organized fashion. I was drawn to this particular workshop because of the mixed media connection.

Can you tell us a bit about incorporating collage and other mixed media into your quilts?

One of my goals is to incorporate my own drawing, painting, and photographs into my work. As I am learning ways to use mixed media into my quilts, I am discovering my own unique style. I have a lot of interests and can’t decide on any one media – I guess that’s why I’m attracted to mixed media – I want to do it all.

Resistance - Resists

As many of you know, this month's theme on the Sketchbook Challenge is "Can't Resist This". So I thought I would share one of my favorite techniques that makes use of a resist. In this case the resist is gesso, but you could use any kind of acrylic medium.

First I coat the sketchbook page or paper with a thin coat of gesso and let it dry thoroughly. Then I fill the page with acrylic color, in this case some reds, golds and purples. While the paint is still a bit wet I spritz on some water from a squirt bottle, and tip the page to get some drips. Let it dry a bit more (the water is still wet!), then blot with a paper towel. If I don't gesso the paper first, then it absorbs the paint more and you don't get the dramatic effect.

For a second kind of resist, I cut out a shape (in this case, a bird) in freezer paper and ironed it to the painted page. I learned this technique from one of our sketchbook challenge participants, Laura, who posts on our flickr site. Then, I painted around the freezer paper mask before removing it. Just a sketchbook page, not a finished piece.

Laura said she got the idea from a tutorial on the Sew Daily newsletter, in which they were making freezer paper stencils for quilts. Click here to view the article (Thanks, Laura, for the link!).

Here is my own video tutorial on the "Gesso Resist", or "Spritz and Blot" as I prefer to call it. I did include my own version of the freezer paper technique as well.



If the video doesn't work, click here to see it on YouTube.

Here is the piece from the video, stage one:

And after the freezer paper masks were removed and I'd painted over areas of it. Just an experimental piece, but I learned a lot from this experiment!


Thanks for visiting!

Workshops in Westford

Just back from workshops at Ink About It in Westford, MA. What a blast! On Friday evening we made fanciful spring bird ornaments; Saturday was Unlocking the Secrets of Color, and on Sunday I co-taught a Sketch-In with Sue Bleiweiss, who blogged about it on the Sketchbook Challenge. Without further comment, here are some photos from my bird and color classes:

This is Raine's bird. Raine comes to all my workshops at Inky's, and serves as my personal laugh track.


This bird got great head gear as well as tail feathers:


This one got a glittery wing and sequin eye:


Two types of tail feathers adorn this one's behind:


Same with this one:


We got out the Angelina Fiber to add glitz to many of the wings. This one has imaginative feet:


The crown really MAKES this bird, as well as the skeleton leaves for a tail, sprinkled with Angelina Fiber.

This bird project is in my new book, Adventures in Mixed Media, which is available on April 26.

Now, for the Unlocking the Secrets of Color class. After painting color wheels, color gradations, and value scales, we put our skills into practice to make collage-paintings. We focused mostly on collage-paintings in one color (monochromatic) or closely related (analogous) colors.







Thanks for visiting! And thanks to Ink About It for hosting the workshops. Don't forget to go to the Sketchbook Challenge blog to see pictures from the Sketch-In.