Irish Musicians and a Big-Time Computer Crash

WELL! I have had quite a month! My computer crashed with a resounding thump the third week of August as I was preparing the workbooks for my newest workshop, the one I've been chronicling here. It has taken me quite awhile and quite a jouncy ride to get a new computer up and running, the workbooks finished and off to the printer so they could arrive here in time for the class, and to finish gathering teaching materials and getting ready to teach that class. WHEW!

Below is the entry I managed to prepare the week after the crash (but never got a chance to post), and now I'm already in the middle of the Journaling workshop so it is slightly out of date -- but there's some really interesting news in it so I'm going to post this tonight and then post the info about the workshop (how it went, what I'll have to change, and other cool stuff, plus pictures) tomorrow or the next day. So start reading, and keep tooned.

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drafted about August 25 but never posted:

My Journaling Workshop is Official!

Hoo boy, it's for real now! My classified ad just appeared in the September issue of The Artist's Magazine (page 84, top left corner!), and I have two students signed up already plus the magazine has sent me "leads" from people who registered interest in it. Looks like it's a go! I need to send out info to those leads soon!

I spent some time putting my Journaling Workshop web page together, too, and I think it looks pretty exciting. El Remanso, the wildlife lodge in Costa Rica which is hosting the workshops, has also put up a web page about it.

I have my first go at the class in just a couple of weeks here in The Rogue Valley (that's what they call this area, since the mighty Rogue River, of Rooster Cogburn fame runs through it). The class is listed on page 33 of the Ashland Parks and Recreation Guide along with the new venture that fellow artist Cathy Egelston and I are going to try, which is leading sketching rambles in Lithia park on the 2nd and 4th Mondays in October and November.

I've heard of other artists going out and sketching with whoever shows up for the "crawl" and thought it sounded like fun -- so we'll give it a try. Since Cathy and I both teach in the area, we figured it might be a nice way to get acquainted with potential students -- they can come and get a free look at us before committing time and their hard-earned money to a class or workshop.

My workbooks aren't finished yet, though. I had finished the sketching workbook and was putting the finishing touches on the writing workbook when my barely-2-year-old computer crashed. Gone. Have you noticed how time seems to pass by so quickly as we get older? Well, I thought I'd backed up just a few days before, and it turned out it was three WEEKS before. I lost a lot of work I'd put beau coup time into, and I also lost all my email for the last many years, all my contacts, etc. And I lost EVERYTHING in the workbooks.

Actually, I'd printed out a fairly recent draft (with only (!) a couple of days of improvement lost), but I'm in Oregon and my InDesign program disk was accidentally left in Idaho last time I went, so there was no time to start over and no time to get it here with the Labor Day Weekend in the way. So I've been scanning all the printed draft pages into Photoshop, making the needed changes graphically, and I'll put those into pdfs to send to the printer. They'll work fine -- it's just not how I planned to spend my week!

And oh, if you've ever had your computer croak on you, you'll know the agony of sitting down to do something and discovering that something needs installing, or you're missing a beloved program that you only had on your computer and have no way to replace.

So it's been a tough week, but at least my new computer is up and running and my old scanner works again, so, soon I will scan in some of the things I've been sketching. It was SO much fun drawing the Irish musicians again last week! Thirteen of them at one point, with harp, bodhran (drum), mandolin, guitar, fiddle, pipes, bones, box, button accordian, and banjo (hope I didn't forget anything!).

Watercolor Pencil Apples

On three weekends in July and August (3 sessions), I had a remarkable group of workshop students. They looked rather ordinary and most of them claimed that they didn't have a clue about drawing, but by the time we had finished the workshop, all six women had convinced me that they were extraordinary.

There were only six of them -- in the summer it can be hard to fill classes here because we have a rather small area to draw from ('scuse the pun!) and I've given this workshop here several times already.

But the enthusiasm was high and they jumped right into the right-brain drawing exercises with gusto. Elise had taken the class before, and I hoped she wouldn't find it repetitive, but she reassured me that it was excellent practice for her, so I stopped worrying about it.

By the second session, they were gaining confidence, and the critiques were of great interest, with everyone learning from each other. In the picture at the top, each has drawn a gnarly stick, first with the stick in front of them, then immediately after, a drawing of it from memory -- the results of which caused considerable amusement.

The apples were daunting at first, but we took it step by step, and soon the ghosts of apples were appearing on the paper as they first laid down a yellow wash, wet it then dried it, then started applying the various reds, purples, greens and yellows close examination revealed on those supposedly red apples. At left below, pencil is scribbled on -- below right, water is painted over the pencil, and the watercolor pencil marks blend and spread into what looks very much like a watercolor painting. More pencil and more water can be applied until the desired intensity is reached, although too many washes may buckle the paper.

Click pictures for a bigger view

Soon, the drawings were looking good enough to eat, and the ladies were rightly pleased with their results.
Below is each student with her masterpiece.

In order of appearance, the apple artists are: Carol C., Elise L., Leslie L., Marta D. and Mary Lou L., They all gave me permission to include them here. Cathleen K., who is in the center of the critique photo at top, couldn't make it to the third session, but I'm positive her apple would have been as high quality as the rest.






Here are the apples close-up -- click on the picture to see them even better.

Sketching the Musicians

Finally! I finished the workbooks for my sketching/journaling workshop (the weekend of September 15 and 16, and the following Thursday night, September 20), not an easy task with my scanner driver in the ditch. When I create a journal I like to scan in drawings and other goodies from my journals and sketchbooks -- but for this one I had to rely on files I already had scanned in.

Actually, I'm really pleased with the results, so it's no big deal.

My friend Cathy Egelston, also an artist, instructor and journaler, took the workbooks and tried out the course. She says the workshop's almost there -- pointing out places where I could bolster faltering confidence in would-be journalers if needed, and suggesting changes that would make the process easier. I didn't leave enough room for the calligraphy sample on the workbook page, for instance, and it was hard for her to try out the lettering with the calligraphy pen in the cramped space. Good to know!

It's always important to vet a workshop before giving it for the first time. I've given workshops cold, without running them past a "reviewer," but it's scary and I always notice things during the workshop that I might have approached differently. I would have been pretty vexed with myself during this workshop, for instance, as I watched students struggle with the calligraphy sample. It's of paramount importance to me to give people MORE than they expect for their money.

Now I'll go back into the workbook files, which I've been setting up in InDesign (an excellent program, by the way, but it requires a rather steep initial learning process), and make the fixes Cathy suggested. Then I can convert the workbooks to .pdf files and upload them to my brother David's printing company server (aren't I lucky?) and in a week or so I'll receive the workbooks via FedEx or UPS, gorgeous and ready to go.

Cathy and I did some impromptu journal sketching yesterday -- we went to The Black Sheep, a pub in Ashland (Oregon) just down the road, and sketched the musicians jamming Irish music -- an every-Sunday event. If I ever get that dang scanner going again, I'll upload my sketches of the harpist, mandolin, fiddle and other players.

It was deeply satisfying to be immersed in the lively music while sketching. I was working in ball-point pen, my Guinness Stout on the dark wooden table beside me, while Cathy concentrated on pencil as she sipped her tea. One of the musicians beckoned us over as we were packing up to leave (on our way to the swimming hole, complete with knotted rope swing for a plunge into the waters of the Ashland reservoir), and admired the sketches. What fun!

That sketching, now that I've planned the workshop, will serve as a bit of fodder for schemes to encourage and invigorate my students-to-be. I've been so busy recently that I've had little time to indulge in my favorite pastime, and now I need to work on my own journal pages to demonstrate techniques I've been touting in my workbooks.

By the way, I just completed the final session of my nature sketching workshop last Sunday. It was a wonderful group of gung-ho students, and we had great fun. I'll talk more about them next blog.

Until next blog, then!

On Talking to Yourself

Yesterday was the second session in my current 3-session Nature Sketching Workshop, and I must confess I am having fun with it. I think my favorite part is bringing home the importance of cognizant observation -- and the amazement (of my students) that mere looking is not the same as cognizant observation.

Here's what happens in the class: As part of the landscape sketching instruction, I include (and stress) sketching foreground items such as sticks, pinecones, shrubs, grasses, etc.

I show the students a sequoia cone, and go through the thinking-out-loud process of observing the cone: what is the shape (egg-shaped, with a flat end), how are the scales arranged (diagonal rows, at cross angles in a grid), what does the perimeter look like (very jagged, outlining the scales), and what does the end of each scale look like (a bumpy diamond, with a "kissy-lips" shape). They help select and create the verbal descriptions, and say them out loud.

Then, as an exercise, I ask the students to choose either a sequoia cone or a gnarly stick from my gnarly stick collection and draw it for about fifteen minutes. We don't describe the sticks out loud, as each one is different. As they draw, I go from student to student helping them get the shape right, applying shading, showing gnarliness and wood grain, etc. The results are generally good, and the students end up being reasonably pleased with the results (NOTE: artists are way too hard on themselves).

But then I remove the sticks or cones and I ask them to redraw their subject on a fresh page from memory, without reference to the stick or cone or the previous drawing.

Amazingly, the students sketching sticks they had just examined and drawn for fifteen minutes, often cannot remember the shape of the stick, where twigs protruded, which way the stick curved, or other major landmarks on the stick.

Students drawing a cone, however, can produce a creditable drawing, right down to the design on the ends of the scales. They have developed an internal "template" of a sequoia cone which they can use for later reference.

You'd think that the stick image would be deeply imprinted in one's brain after fifteen minutes of intense study, but I think there is something else going on here, and it has to do with our highly developed left brain, which uses words and symbols to operate.

Since we described the cone in highly descriptive words and related features to known shapes and symbols, then drawing the cone from memory is easily accomplished by applying those symbols and shapes to the paper.

The gnarly stick however, hasn't been "labeled," so it is difficult to remember its amorphous shape accurately. This also makes drawing the stick a challenging task since each line has to be drawn on its own merit instead of as part of, for instance, a "kissy-lips" shape.

The solution to the drawing problem of a loosely structured form like a gnarly stick is to keep up an internal (or if you're alone, an external) dialogue while drawing. For instance, to tell yourself that "this stick is an inch wide and six inches long" or "it is five times as long as it is wide," or "it's shaped like an open-mouthed whale." And to describe protruding twigs: "there are two twigs on top, three on the bottom, and the middle top one forks." Additionally, "twigs emerge at a 45 degree angle" and "the long crack extends from the first twig to the fourth, and has a triangular break in it." "Two knotholes, one is oval, the other is round and both look like volcanoes." Sometimes a negative shape (the shape around the subject) can be described instead: "the negative shape at the end of the stick resembles a dog's head." Descriptions like that.

If you have words to hang a scene on, it is easier to remember for later reference, and it is also far easier to draw it the first time than if you are simply trying to push your pencil in the direction a line seems to go in the scene.

Next time you draw, talk to yourself. You may find the conversation quite stimulating and educational ;o}

p.s. The Journal/Sketching workshop is proceeding quickly -- I'm on the journaling part now! And I'm into the Common Moorhen (used to be the Common Gallinule) page in the swamp book illustrations -- did you know that moorhen chicks have blue foreheads and lipstick red bills? And bright candy-pink skin showing through sparse black hairs on the top of the head? They're a hoot!

Journal = Diurnal

Definition of "journal": A type of diary, from the Latin diarium

Hey, did you know that "journal" is the same word as "diurnal" and comes from the same Latin root for "day?"

My friend Daniel was just in Ireland. He had lunch with a duke, and says the Brits pronounce duke as juke.

While we usually pronounce the first syllable of diurnal as "die," the Romans, who spoke Latin, likely prounced it "dee," so it would have sounded like "dee-urnal." So if you say diurnal as the Latins would have then, and as the British do today, it comes out REALLY close to journal!

Aren't words fun?

I'm working on my first Journaling Workshop workbook today. I mention that there.

I'm thinking of calling the workshop "Creative Journaling." What do you think? Drop me a line with your input!

Additionally, a lot of people keep blogs and I'm thinking of making that a possible line of approach, as in:

• NOTE:
• If you already blog online, keeping another journal on the side may be just too much. You may want to consider creating your journal by printing out your blog entries and keeping them in a loose-leaf binder to which you can add pages of drawings and other materials. The pages could be printed onto heavy paper to allow for sketching and the entire journal could be bound at a later date.

I'm looking for input. Do you think that would be a good idea?

My next "Nature Drawing with Irene" workshop

My July workshop is almost upon me, and yesterday I stopped by the North Mountain Park Nature Center, which is sponsoring this workshop, to make sure all my ducks were in a row. They appear to be.

This workshop, "Nature Drawing with Irene Brady" will be held at a classroom in The Grove, which is near Ashland's (Oregon) City Hall. I've not taught there before, so I don't know what the ambience will be like, but hey, I expect we'll all be so busy we won't notice.

The cost for the 3-day class [9:30-2:30 on Saturdays, July 21 (Sketching Techniques), July 28 (Landscape Techniques), and August 4, (Watercolor Pencil Techniques)] is $95, and I provide all the tools and supplies, and a set of three workbooks (one for each class) with extra sketching pages and lots of tips and exercises so that students not only have something to take home from the workshop but something to work from later to continue their sketching education.

The workbooks are popular and I've even had people contact me online to ask if they could purchase just the books. At the moment I'm only using them in the class -- but later I might put them together into a combined book for aspiring nature artists.

But back to the workshop....I just checked out a great idea I had with the nature center and they agreed to let me invite just the people who have taken my classes previously to drop in for single refresher sessions of the workshop at $35 each. For instance, someone might like to attend just the second class, Landscape Techniques if that is the only aspect they'd like to brush up on. Provided there is room in the class, they can just appear and pay at the door (however, I'd suggest they contact me by phone or email to confirm a spot before the day of the class -- there's a link in the panel at right, and you can learn more about the class here).

We haven't tried this before, so it remains to be seen if there will be interest in such a plan. Of course, if the class fills up completely, it won't work. But sometimes I get a dropout, so a spot could open up even then.

I love teaching this class. It is always exciting to me to see "I-can't-draw-a-straight-line" people realize they CAN draw, and watch them, by the 3rd session, shading and coloring their very presentable drawings with great satisfaction. Just as exciting, though, is to see artists who have been drawing or painting for a long time markedly improve their ability to draw more accurately what they see. And I love it when I have all kinds in the class -- they are an inspiration to each other and to me, too.

I've been getting some email feedback on my last blog about the Sketch/Journaling Workshop plan I posted. In the next blog I'll discuss what has come in. If you'd like to be part of the discussion, read the previous blog (below) and send me a comment or email about your reaction to the proposed workshop. I'd really appreciate your input.

Journaling Workshop Lesson Plan

I blogged yesterday that I would try to get this up today -- the lesson plan for my upcoming workshop-in-progress. {I've been trying to work as I listen to the marvelous Beverly Sills retrospective. She was a remarkable woman with a fantastic voice!} And, at least on the west coast, it is still July 5.

I'd appreciate any comments, advice, criticism or words of wisdom you have to offer. It would actually be nice to hear from you in the comment box at the bottom of this entry, so others can see what has been commented on and add grist to the mill.

I love help on things like this. I always pass around evaluation sheets at the end of my workshops, then work very hard to improve to meet the needs of my students.

Even better, though, is to work out the kinks BEFORE giving the class. So lend a hand if you can. Pro or con.

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Nature and Garden Journaling, with Sketches and Words

First Session is drawing, Second Session is writing, Third Session is for showing results of workshop training and improving writing/sketching skills.

All journal entries will be made with intent to share with the class – no private observations!

This workshop can also be presented in four sessions, with the addition of a watercolor pencil techniques session for learning how to color the artwork.

DAY ONE: Creative Drawing Session

VISUALS: my journals or samples from them
Right-brain workshop stuff
Examples of things to glue into journals

Introduce self, discuss my journal keeping, hand out workbooks

Show some of the journals I’ve kept

Go around room and elicit what people want to do with their journals. Record this on a flip chart for all to see and get inspiration from.

Refer to workbook, list of types of journals

Discuss styles and types of journals

Have pile of books on journaling on display, discuss & recommend good ones

Right-brain Exercises: contour, modified contour, leaf, negative spaces

Drawing Exercise: students make sketch of a natural article around which to journal on the second day – leave area around sketch empty for use in the second session.

Students decide on journal type they will use for this class

• Garden
• Nature
• General

Discuss designing a journal: gutter margins, planning ahead, illustrations first, adding flat things: movie tickets, leaves, pressed flowers, etc.

Assignment 1: research the natural article sketched during class and/or make notes (not on page around sketch) to utilize in applying the creative writing information gained in the next session

Assignment 2: make a 1 (or more) page entry as a baseline example in order to gauge later improvement. Add illustration if desired.

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DAY TWO: Creative Writing Session

Examples of good and mundane writing in workbook
Discuss examples of using a thesaurus to replace mundane words

Creative writing exercise: take a single sentence (from workbook) and expand it to an interesting paragraph, 100-150 wds

Creative poetry exercise: 4-liner rhyming, 4-liner freeform, haiku

Discuss examples of nature journaling entries, garden journaling entries and general journaling entries

Exercise: journal around the illustration done in previous workshop session.

Assignment for final session: Create at one or two entries with illustrations, one snippet of poetry, at least one paste/tape-in article, using information on designing a page and leaving a gutter.

(Select one of the categories below)

• GARDEN ENTRY SUGGESTION: make an observation about a plant in the garden, a sketch of the plant, a haiku, a pressed leaf, flower, seed, seed packet, or cut-out photo from magazine, etc. with notes and arrows.

• NATURE ENTRY SUGGESTION: make an observation about a found natural object, a sketch of it, a haiku of it, a pressed leaf or flower or another natural object found nearby, with notes and arrows

• GENERAL ENTRY SUGGESTION: make an observation about anything you’d like, a sketch to illustrate it, a poem about it, a related flat article (or just something interesting) glued or taped onto the page – if it’s unrelated, label and annotate it.

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SESSION THREE: Results

Students bring their journals with assignments done

Each participant presents his/her journal to class

Class critique and admiration of journals, with suggestions and praise

Share ideas for future journal entries and approaches

Respond to student requests for further sketching or writing exercises.

If there is time, students sketch and journal the meeting during class