Nature Sketching Workshop - 6-21&22&28-08

Time is scudding past! I finished my final June Nature Sketching class last weekend, and it couldn't have been more fun or rewarding. Here are my students, working on a critique.

As I mentioned last entry, it was one of my more age-varied classes, from Gene, who is twelve, to us older folk, in our 60s, with teenagers added in for good measure -- and it was a good measure. All of my students were hard workers and emerged magically at the end as artists, (although some already had some expertise when they arrived).

I got so involved with the process I forgot to take pictures until nearly the end of the first day when everyone was involved in drawing their turkey feathers and I had a chance to stop and breathe.

The second day was all about landscapes, and one of the projects was drawing sticks. This seems like such a ridiculous project until you start to draw, then the most marvelous things happen -- such as "a stick" becomes a particular individual stick, with fascinating curves, protruberances, cracks, and swirls. The students became well acquainted with their sticks, and their results were remarkably lifelike. They also practiced textures used for leaves, grasses, rocks, and other things that make up a landscape.

And, moving on to how to interpret a scene, everyone chose a photo (from a large assortment) to try to translate what they had been studying and practicing into a drawing. This was also their homework (although optional), and while a lot of the drawing was done in class, a number of the students worked on it during the week and here are their results:



I was impressed with their progress. We didn't spend a lot of time on shading in class, so their efforts in that direction were quite entrepreneurial (did I spell that right?)
After the critique, I demonstrated for each student (on request) how to get the results they wanted for various areas of their individual drawings.


This third day the focus was on watercolor pencils, so we worked awhile on the color wheel, then did a "coloring book" exercise on an orchid outline. This is a useful exercise for a beginning watercolor pencil student because they won't be afraid of messing up their own drawing with color if they're using a predrawn outline.

Then it was on to the final project of the day, drawing an apple and coloring it. In this workshop I didn't sit down much, and I didn't draw and color my own apple as I did in the last class with only three students. I needed that time to coach and help my eight (well, seven, since one of my younger students could only attend the first two classes) students. So here are most of them with their apples, then the apples close-




up in the same order. The second one from the right is Kate's, who isn't in a photo. Chris wasn't at the third session:





and here are their extremely edible-looking results! Yum, huh? Be sure to click for a close-up look.

At the end of the workshop, as always, I handed around an evaluation sheet. This one was special because in addition to their opinions and experiences of the class I asked the students questions about how they would feel about this 3-day workshop being split into two separate 2-day workshops: Beginning Nature and Landscape Sketching, and Advanced Nature Sketching and Watercolor Pencil.

The response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. I'm still scheduled to do this version of the class a couple more times, but as it happens, both workshops have been stretched into 4-day workshops, so the effect will be the same. The split-up two-day format will fit weekend attendees better than a 4-day combined workshop would, so it should work okay. I'll keep you updated on how that goes.

This week was pretty crazy, because in addition to the class, I received my 25 Advance Reading Copies (also called Advance Review Copies or ARCs) from the printer, wrote up the incredibly detailed information sheet that has to go with it, stuffed them into padded envelopes, and shipped them off to reviewers and important people that have offered to write blurbs for the back cover. It was a lengthier process by a magnitude of ten than it sounds, and I am really frazzled.

In addition, I have been working on my brand-new garden, planted in tree pots in a clearing in the manzanita on the hillside south of my house. Wanna see? Here's what it looked like on the 20th of June.

I got to eat that reddest strawberry in the photo, the first one I ever grew, but a wild turkey got the other two just as they ripened (DANG!), having flown in over the fence. However, I gave it quite a fright and it may not come back (HA! you say?)

That picture was taken June 20. However, you may have noticed that it's three days into July already, so by now my garden is WAY junglier, and I don't have a picture of it yet because, speaking of jungles, I have been preparing to go to Costa Rica (leaving noon tomorrow!), too.

Alas, I had to cancel the workshop I had scheduled there for July 7-10. I got a few queries, and one student was even about to sign up, but on reflection she decided she couldn't afford the air fare. I'm wondering how much the sky-high ticket prices deterred would-be workshop attendees. I got my ticket way back in March, when it was $700+, but I think now they are MUCH higher than that.

Daniel and I are going anyway, workshop or not. I will take my sketchbook, as usual, and sketch what I see on my journey. I'll be back on the 17th or so, and I'll require a couple of days to decompress, then I'll try to start getting some of the journal/sketchbook page up on this blog.

Thanks for sticking around! When I return, after I put up my journal and sketches, I will start working on the History and Nature Sketching workshop for the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, trying to keep a running account of what's transpiring. I've already ordered about 6 books of pioneer diaries and accounts from Amazon to research what the travelers on the Trail experienced. I've already received some of the books, so maybe I'll take a couple to read in my hammock in C.R. Sure.....

In the meantime, you have a lovely summer, don't inhale too much smoke from forest fires if you're on the west coast (like me), and stay cool.

Big hugs,
Irene

Report on my Sketching/Journaling Workshop

Thursday night was the third and final session of my new Sketching/Journaling Workshop (I still haven't figured out a good name for it ~ any suggestions?) This is the one I've been chronicling over the last couple of months as I've worked on it.

My workbooks arrived in plenty of time (whew!) and were received by the students with surprised pleasure (you don't usually get a pretty workbook in a workshop ;^)

The workshop went well, and throughout this blog today I am introducing my class and their works, having their permission to post their photos and works here. They were wonderful people, every one. I miss them already. The first two classes were on Saturday and Sunday from 9-2:30.

However, I can't claim it went exactly as expected. Although I've been writing books and teaching art for many years, I'd never taught creative writing, and I set my sights a bit too low. The students jammed through the exercises with great gusto and skill, leaving us finished half an hour early. Falling back on my art experience, I gathered them in a circle and we all sketched each other for the remaining time. It was a great exercise, but not exactly "writing." I sketched this student, and colored it later as a demonstration in the watercolor pencil session.

The class attracted people who wanted to journal and sketch. Some had never journaled, most weren't able to sketch as realistically as they wished. Some had neither drawing nor journaling experience, so the challenge was to keep everyone working at their own pace and level. Suzanne, a very creative artist, had created a gorgeous hand-made journal that she'd never worked up enough nerve to write in -- it was too beautiful! Shirley S. had tried journaling many times, but always gave up in despair over her art. Everyone had different approaches and needs.

SESSION 1: The first day was full to the brim with drawing exercises and projects. I use right-brain techniques to get beginners off the ground and remind intermediate artists about ways to draw more accurately. Beginners were discovering skills they hadn't realized they had. My one intermediate student brushed up on line work and tried out new tools. We did contour and modified contour drawings and other fun things. Evern's cowrie (at right) came out nicely, as did Shirley B.'s abalone shell, below. The assignment for overnight was to journal and sketch a page, and find a related item to glue onto the page to add interest.

SESSION 2: The next morning we critiqued the journaling efforts -- some great entries came back -- Gail sketched a hail-torn leaf, wrote a bit about it, and glued in pieces of her awning which had been holed by the hail. Shirley S. sketched maple leaves and seeds in the park, and glued in maple seeds and a pressed leaf. A student told us about microwave plant presses! I need to get one!

We sailed right into the writing exercises: take a boring sentence and turn it into an interesting paragraph. The biggest problem with journals is that often we don't work to make them interesting -- but if we do, we'll have far more interesting reading in the future. Their efforts were stellar, and each one read their paragraph to the appreciative audience.

Later, we progressed to poetry, haiku, rhyming and free verse, and limericks. Poems really add a personal touch to a page -- both in content and visual effect -- and the students seemed quite pleased with their efforts, inserting poems and haiku into later entries quite skillfully. In general, the writing was MOST excellent, often funny, drawing appreciative laughter, head nods, and applause from the group.

We also experimented with rendering the haiku with felt-tip calligraphy pens, and making calligraphy initial caps. But in retrospect, I think I will try another approach to that. The ink felt-tip tends to soak through onto the reverse side of the page and the tips are too large to render the letters small enough to visually complement the page. The students offered some good ideas to pursue in that area, which I'll probably mention later.

The assignment was for two journal entries and sketches, with glued-in items. While this isn't a scrapbooking class, a journal is a good place to save important flat items, and they do add a tactile and visual boost to a page.

SESSION 3: This was an evening session and lasted from 7-9 (well, 9:40). Class was supposed to let out at nine but went on another forty minutes because people were having such a good time coloring their sketches and enjoying one another.

I introduced the watercolor pencils, and various techniques they could use, then I sat down with them to demonstrate techniques by coloring the sketch I had made in the portrait circle on the first day, showing them tools and rendering techniques as I proceeded and answering questions and helping individuals as needed. Our critique at the end was helpful, with students seeing what others had done and learning those techniques for their own later renderings.

LATER: Since I've taught long versions of the drawing and coloring classes before, those sessions were relatively easy, although without the full length drawing sessions I couldn't take the students as far toward their goals as we wanted. So I did suggest they might want to attend drawing classes I'll do later on in the season.

I was sorry when the class ended. So were the students. They asked for a list of people's email addresses so they can get in touch with each other after the class, and I sent that out yesterday, plus a .pdf of the letter I'll be sending out to people who responded to my ad in The Artist's Magazine (more about that in a later blog). So there it is, the first run of the Sketching/Journaling Workshop has debuted.

At left is a "patch" Suzanne glued over a drawing that she felt "bombed." At right is our workshop announcement and the Journalist's Credo that Gail glued inside her journal's front cover. Above, check out Shirly B.'s pressed flowers. Above are Dan's fuzzy almonds, and scattered throughout this blog entry are a lot of other great pieces from the class!

At the end of the last session, I held a raffle for my book The Redrock Canyon Explorer in return for evaluation sheets which each student filled out. To me, that's a great trade, and I got lots of good feedback from them, which I'll put to work next time I give this class.

By the way, the students knew they were experiencing the first run of the class (and that they'd gotten a $20 discount because of that). I decided to tell them right from the get-go, and they seemed to enjoy helping me spot areas to be improved. In the last session as they colored their sketches, they offered a whole raft of ideas to add to the longer Costa Rica workshop next February.

Thanks to each and every one of you students for your bright presence and participation in this inaugural run of "our" Sketching/Journaling Workshop. You made it a joy for everyone around you, and your contributions will have a definite imprint on all the future presentations of the class. Thank you!