Oregon High Desert Crossing Tutorial

Okay, here 'tis.
I have before me three versions of my Oregon High Desert Crossing Sketch Journal. The first one you may have seen and/or downloaded within the last three weeks or so, the straight sketch journal of my May sketching/journaling trip across Oregon (journal WITHOUT tutorial). Click on the sketchbook images to go see their descriptions and/or order.

Then, because several people expressed an interest, I've assembled a tutorial of how I did it (does that make it a "howdunnit"?) and inserted each howdunnit page across from its finished sketch page for a second version (journal WITH tutorial).

And THEN, since a) mebbe you downloaded the sketchbook hot off the press without the tutorial, or maybe b) you don't think you'll be wanting it but would like the option of changing your mind later, I'm offering JUST the tutorial (Tutorial ONLY), so you can add it to your journal if/when you decide you'd like both. You wouldn't want the tutorial alone, because it doesn't show the finished sketchbook page ~ that's in the Journal without Tutorial. aiieeeee!!!

So. If you'd like to see how it's done and you already downloaded the journal, now download the Tutorial and you'll find out how I approached each page, and the obstacles I overcame to do it, and even some of the booboos I had to fix (or just sob over quietly before turning the page).








For instance, you'll find out what happened when I made some ghastly color choices for the background of this quail, what I did about it, what I wish I'd done about it, and what an artist friend suggested as an alternative fix. There's even a photo of me drawing the quail, to prove that I didn't just trace an image off the internet [grin].

Since the straight journal is $5.95 and the combined version is $9.95, I've priced the tutorial at $4 so that it costs exactly the same to download them separately ~ or to buy the combined version.

Have I totally confused everyone? sorry!

It's been easy to stay indoors this last week and work on this. Thursday and Friday it was 104 and 105 degrees (gasp, gasp), then Saturday and Sunday it was in the 60s and overcast (kinda not what you expect for August, and a bit chilly for skin accustomed to dry heat) then today it went whole hog and delivered rain drizzle at 50 degrees! Geez Louize! That's 54 degrees colder than it was just five days ago, in the middle of the day, and quite a bit wetter. I'm not complaining about the rain, because we really need it, but.....wow! And now I can't go get my daily fix of nirvana as I weed/prune/stake down at the nursery because everything is sopping and I'd get drenched.

After toughing it out for several hours this morning and saying "aw, c'mon, it's August!" I finally started a fire in my woodstove and at last it's comfortable in the house again. Maybe all the climate change poo-pooers will start to see what the climatologists have been trying to tell us ~ that global warming will deliver us wild and crazy weather, not just heat.

The forecasters are saying we should expect lots of snow here in western Oregon this winter. Good for the snowpack, which will melt all next summer to provide water for the streams, but not so good on my steep-hairpin-curves driveway, which will probably be too slick to skate down. "Cook up the beans and rice, Jessie! We done been snowbound agin!"

Enough digression! Come see my wonderful new tutorial. It was a joy to create, and I'm going to seriously consider doing tutorials for some of my future journals. And hey, if I get snowbound, mebbe I kin draw a snowflake collection. Huh!

Enjoy!

My new Oregon High Desert Crossing Journal is up!

I finally DID it! The new sketch journal is up! But only after going through two interminable months of journaler's block. I couldn't write or sketch or even think about finishing my new Oregon High Desert Crossing Journal, no matter how hard I tried. Whew!

Here's what happened:
In May I drove across the entire state of Oregon, from where I live in Talent (near Medford and Ashland on the west side) to Eagle, near Boise, Idaho, where my brother lives. It was a great trip, 500 miles, with four days on the road and another exploring the high desert Owyhee Mountains in Idaho with David & Marcia (Marcia's my sis-in-law). I sketched and journaled the whole time, with ballpoint pen (mostly) and watercolor pencils, but when I got home......

Well, it seems I got the blues. I loved being with family so much, and went into withdrawal symptoms, I guess. Finally, after weeks of avoiding the sketch journal, filling up the time with building a new work desk, cleaning my storage shed, getting out and refurbishing my old 4-harness loom, and any number of other subterfuges and dodges, I got sick and tired of my shenanigans.

I uncoiled the coil from my journal, freed all the pages, and tacked them up onto a big corkboard visible from my computer desk (where I'd been whiling away much of the time). Now it was In My Face, and inescapable. Looking at them many times a day, I began to see little details I might be able to add, things I wanted to improve, tiny things that m.a.y.b.e. I could manage to creep through.... and I managed to scrape and shovel my way through my "journaler's block," finally emerging victorious last week....

... whereupon I got to work and finished adding text to some pages, color to a bunch, and adding sketches from photos I had taken to a couple of others. The result is a sketch journal I am very happy with. And it's a great example of how to turn an ordinary road trip into an adventure you can relive again and again. I've made that trip across Oregon many times. THIS one I'll remember.

Most people think journal pages, and indeed, entire trip journals, emerge as finished works of art at the end of the trip. Some people's do, I suppose. And some of mine almost do, but often pages need a little finishing later on: color, notes, another bit of writing, a haiku, etc. (here's me, journaling on my brother's patio). Sometimes I want to add a sketch from photos I took at the time. Sometimes I originally only have time for a sketchy little note or picture which I can finish or add to later. And generally a fresh cover is in order. The cover for this journal is a composite of elements from several different sketches, plus color and a border, all constructed in Adobe InDesign, a desktop publishing program.

Last week I was talking with a friend (via email) who thought it might be a good idea if I made Oregon High Desert Crossing into a kind of "workbook" sketch journal, with each spread having a facing page showing what I did to create the actual sketch page. For instance, I could show the page as it appeared, unfinished, at the end of my journey on the left side, and what I did (and why and how) to create the final journal page which appears on the right page of the spread.
It might look something like this (remember, you can click on an image to enlarge it).









Does that sound interesting? If it does, I can make a second version available with that sort of addenda. I'd love to get opinions on this to see if anyone is interested. I'd hate to spend the time and effort on it if no one would find it useful. Please, comment and let me know?

I've left the insanely low price for the travel sketch journals intact (only $5.95) so they'll be affordable. And all my other sketching workbooks (basic and intermediate drawing, watercolor pencil, journaling, wildlife sketching, etc.) are still available, too.

And now, I need to get back to my desk. I'm working on the design and layout (and illustration) of a trail guide for the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, and the deadline is getting pretty tight.

Journal ~ Costa Rica Feb.'08

Maybe I misjudged. Only a couple of my Costa Rica journals have been downloaded so far, and I put them online a week ago. Of course, I sent out quite a few complimentary copies, but I thought others might be interested too. Hmmmm....

Well, I am not going to quit on the idea yet. In fact, I decided to rearrange my studio so that I could journal and paint in journals while looking out the window, which means that I've been pushing and tugging and hoisting boxes, sawing and installing boards for shelves, hauling filing cabinets here and there, etc. Actually, I probably wanted an excuse to try out my new tools.

Mostly when artists talk about "new tools," they're referring to a rainbow of colored pencils or soft new brushes and such. Me, I was talking about my new rechargeable circular hand saw and drill, complete with 2 batteries and a charger, which I bought at Home Depot this week for $89. Oh yeah, and my two new saw horses for $21. That pretty much used up my proceeds from the yard sale I did with my friend Darby last weekend (it didn't rain!). I've been wanting these for years so I wouldn't be dependent upon extension cords and trying not to saw through the saw cord, untangling cords, etc.

I LOVE the new tools, and used the saw to cut first a shelf, then a piece of molding to put on the front edge of the slanted desktop so things wouldn't roll off. (The new sawhorses worked admirably.)
And the drill to drill holes then act as a screwdriver to attach the top edge of the desktop to the sill. My brother David gave me an electric brad-driver when I was in Idaho, and I fastened the molding on with that. Cool!

Below right is a picture of my studio now. On the left is my computer desk (with the computer monitor down UNDER the desktop so I can sit comfortably without craning my neck upward toward the screen).

The new drawing/writing/journaling desk is just to its right, with a high chair Daniel loaned me sitting in front of it. The chair is "guy-sized," but it works. The desk top is a piece of plywood with a skunk drawn on it, then stained and varnished. I did that many years ago, and the desktop has been languishing in the storage shed for a long time. It's nice to see it again. I love skunks ~ I used to be a licensed baby skunk rehabber.

In the foreground is my shipping table where I fill orders. It juts out into the center, with its scale to weigh the packages on (so I can apply postage from my computer and not have to stand in line at the post office), and an order of books being processed. Invisible around the corner to the left of the computer are my b/w and color printers.

You can see why I'd want to sit in front of the lovely view of the hillside, with its ponderosa pines, Douglas firs, manzanita bushes, oak and madrone trees and miscellaneous little forbs and grass, and other forest floor stuff.

Of course, in order to see the scenery out the window, the next step is to wash the windows. I've let them get pretty dirty to ensure that no birds will hit them, but I'll put very narrow strips of sticky-back shelf liner six inches apart on them as soon as they're clean. The birds see the (1/16") strips and notice the window, but the strips are barely noticeable from inside ~ and it's worth it to have clean windows!

In fact, in the photo at right, two strips of shelf paper, applied to the outside of the studio door glass lengthwise, have been there for four years now (can you see 'em?). So obviously they're weather proof, I can see out into the yard from inside, but I seldom notice the strips. Since I put it up, I haven't had a single bird hit that glass! Yay!!!

So, as soon as I get this all squared away (I'm still carrying out junk), I'll work on the next journal to put online (traveling across Oregon's High Desert). If anyone is interested, that is.

Cheers,
Irene

My New Costa Rica Sketch Journal is available!

What a spring this has been! Rain, rain, and more rain, a Jack-in-the-Beanstalk garden, yet more rain, a trip across central Oregon, and then a bit more rain.....
To visit my brother and his family in Idaho, I spent four days traveling nearly 1091 miles back and forth across the high desert of Oregon, and I sketched and journaled at every opportunity (what a marvelous sketch crawl!).

Actually, opportunities were sparse at times, because even though I had waited until late May for the trip, it rained and snowed for much of the time. But when the clouds parted, and it wasn't raining, I had some great sketching experiences: wild elk along the Rogue River, a colorful young rattlesnake and long-eared owls in the Owyhee Mountains, gadwall ducks diving in a desert lake, a mama pronghorn defending her newborn fawns against circling ravens, and a BUNCH of other adventures. And after a wonderful trip and visit, I came home to another two weeks of rain, which made me gloomy and grumpy..... so I sat down at my computer and went to Costa Rica in my mind.

The outcome of that portable vacation is that I have now a new ebook to offer you! It is called Costa Rica Feb.'08, my travel journal from that sojourn, full of sketches and observations, which you can download for a paltry $5.95.

Also during that rainy/gloomy time, I reviewed what has been happening with my my Workshop Workbook sales since I raised the price from $9.95 to $15.95 in April. I realized that I had inadvertently put the workbooks financially out of reach for many of you in these hard times.

So trusting my heart, I have lowered the price of all my Workshop Workbooks (except for the Observing Nature set) back down to $9.95. Stop by and let me know if I did the right thing!

However, when one lowers a price like that, one has to think about all those wonderful people who bit the bullet and bought the workbooks at the higher price. They would be rightfully miffed.

After some pondering and deep thought I concluded that the only solution would be to offer a bonus download. So... a whole bunch of great people are, as I write, opening their email boxes to discover free download links to Costa Rica Feb.'08. I hope that softens the blow some!

If you write and sketch in a journal on your travels; if you like to travel; if you like to armchair travel; if you are planning a trip to Costa Rica, if you think you might like to try your hand at sketch journaling; ANY of those things ~ and if you can afford $5.95 (I've kept this REALLY low because I'm not sure how great the interest is such a thing), let me suggest you download my sketch journal and get some inspiration for your next trip.

I have a number of other sketch journals you might enjoy, too, including Costa Rica in April and July, ten days in the wilds of Hawaii, the trip across Oregon's High Desert, and maybe even my month-long trek from end to end of New Zealand with Daniel. They aren't cleaned up and uploaded yet, but I plan to do it soon.

I'm starting to pull out of my rain-induced gloom now. It's still often cloudy/rainy, but spring has finally come with 80 degree afternoons and no need to light a fire in the evenings. My garden is producing enough snow peas for daily use and the spinach leaves are 8" across! Fee fie fo FUM!

And remember my woodshed with the roof crushed last winter by the fallen tree? I finally got the rafters hoisted back up and repaired ALL BY MYSELF ~ after a lot of Puzzling Things Out, a big hammer, 2x4s, ropes, electric drill, hand saw, honky galvanized nails, two ladders and a concrete block I hung from the ends of each rafter as I went along to pull the outer end down while I pushed up on the center broken part (the fulcrum technique). Only then could I "scab" it with a long 2x4 securely nailed to each side of the break. I still have to nail the corrugated panel on, but that's EASY compared to mending those rafters! Here are pictures showing the tree on the roof, the repairs partway through, and as it stands now, ready for its roof panel. Click on an image to see a larger version.








So that's the news from the madrone forest in southern Oregon. I hope your spring is progressing in a satisfying way and that you enjoy every minute of it!

Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling IS READY!

FINALLY! Hot off the press, friends! My latest Workshop Workbook ~ Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling is ready. I am extremely pleased with this one. It is chockablock full of good/new stuff, and I feel that it does justice to the original workshop.

Here's a giftie for ye: if you go to its page, you'll find a PDF page of decorative borders and motifs you can download to use even if you don't purchase the book.

I was thinking about this, and I realized that my fondest dream would be to have a comfortable enough income that I could GIVE these workbooks away ~ free downloads. That would please me the very most. But I can't, so there's the little freebie of decorative borders (see the image at left), at least, to please both me and you.

If you do purchase the journaling workbook, I'd love your feedback on it.

This has been a hard-working month, nose to the keyboard as April has played itself out in fits and tantrums of storms and drizzles and windy blasts interspersed with an occasional bit of cold sunshine. It was warmer and far nicer in MARCH, for pete's sake! aieeeee!

However, two of the sunny days we had chose to appear on the dates of my SwanSong Workshop. This was a Nature Sketching Basics workshop for the local Calligraphers' Guild, and had been arranged for way back in 2009, and was (and I say this with a little quaver in my virtual voice) My Last Workshop. I want to thank Cynthia for providing the lovely lettered name tags for each person, each one different, and on beautifully crafted and colored hand-made paper.

The workshop was held at a lovely Day Retreat, residence of one of the calligraphers, overlooking the valley we live in, The Rogue Valley, as it is locally called, and there was a lovely view of it from our classroom and the deck just outside. If you could see over the hill into the distant canyon, you'd see my house, (see the arrow) a few miles up the canyon from Talent (which isn't in the picture), being just off to the right.

The Calligraphers are great folks ~ I had a journaling workshop with them last year and it was a real party for us all. Since they all know each other, there's none of the hesitancy and warming up period of the usual class, and that gives it a sort of family feel. The warm, homey atmosphere of the Retreat also contributed.

Here they are, all twelve of them, hard at work on the second day. I forgot my camera the first day, which was too bad because they produced some wonderful cattail drawings (I gave them the cattails to take home ~ I won't need them again...). Even though I remembered my camera the second day, I felt so laid back I took hardly any pictures.

It was warm enough to eat our lunches out on the deck, then try sketching the shrubbery to learn various textures of leaves, small, large, pointy ~ and how just a few repetitive stroke patterns can show the different character of each kind of vegetation. You merely have to observe and determine what they are then practice using them.

In the afternoon they drew their masterpieces as I circled around behind them, pointing out places that needed attention and helping where needed. They are admiring the results above, as indeed they should.

Usually I post a gallery of the results, and their drawings were right up there with the best, but with this large class I had to spend most of what would have been my photographing time dispensing help and advice, and only had enough time for this one photo, representative of them all. Thank you, JoAnn!

The Guild presented me with a Swan Song gift, a delightful hanging twig basket Cynthia made with a large brown egg (paper-covered) in it, plus a little packet of molded paper "buttons" which you can glue onto a journal page (and which I definitely shall ~ in fact, I think perhaps I'll glue the name tag I wore onto the front of the journal, as it is so beautiful and a reminder of my "former life").

I think I will consider the nest and egg as a symbol of my post-workshop-life hatching out new possibilities (glad it's a BIG egg!). And I've had an idea: now that I'm "retired" ~ I think perhaps I shall save every penny I make on the workbooks and when I amass enough I will take sketch journies, crafting a sketch journal during each one to share with you on my return. I shall upload them onto the web and make them available to y'all as samples of Nature and Travel Sketch Journals at a Very Low Price, maybe $5.95 or something.

There are a number of good things about this. First, it will keep me lively and active and plying my craft. Secondly, it will give me an excuse and impetus to travel. Thirdly, it will give YOU new examples of sketchbooks (and maybe even intimate views of places you want to visit). Fourthly, if I charge a little bit for them I can consider the trips as necessary to my income and I can write the expenses off and not pay taxes on them. Plus, they will contribute funds toward the next Journey.

Hmmmm.....maybe I can include a tutorial in each one on how to do something that's in the journal......hmmmm......Wow! That little brown egg is really working overtime!

Okay, my NEXT project is to start uploading my already-made sketch journals for you to download if you want. This might take a couple of weeks, as with my new idea (the previous paragraph) I will have to craft a tutorial to go with it. This could be interesting!

With that.....I'm off think about the new bunch of goodies!

Taking a short break with a frog....

Little froglet in the water,
don’tcha think you really otter
save that croaking for tonight
when you’re safely outta sight?

Though I love your creaky chorus
pulsing through the springtime forest,
how I hope a hovering hawk
will not end your earnest grok!

Soon, I hope, a loving mate will
come to join you. I can’t wait till
all your fertile eggs are spread,
safely in their waterbed.

Okay, I just had to get that out of my system. I've just finished the 8th proof/edit of Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling and I just had to take a break and do something else for awhile.

The weather has been cold and wet except for a few bright days, just enough to get our hopes up here in southern Oregon, then dash them back down again. We've had 4½" of rain in the last couple of weeks, so that sort of shows you where the gloom gauge is set.

However, it is GREAT for frogs. Just outside my studio door is a pretty little pond I built many years ago, and about 40 feet away is a tub I sank into the forest floor and filled with water. The rain has kept them to the overflowing mark lately.

Each of them has a resident boyfrog, who has spent the last two weeks producing operatic extravaganzas, hoping to attract girlfrogs to their little ponds. Using binoculars, I can see them floating, chins pumped up like balloons, creating concentric, radiating rings on the still water with each croak (except when it's raining, then you can't see the vibes).

In the Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling workbook I've been crafting and endlessly (it seems) proofing and editing, there's a page on creating simple poetry in your journal, and I'd just finished polishing the rules for the umpteenth time (I can't chance ANY misunderstanding of the material in these workbooks because I'm not there to explain if the text isn't clear). So I thought I'd just try out the instructions. The froggy poem was the result.

There's a BUNCH of great stuff in this workbook. It's my best one yet, and longer than the others by a couple of pages. I've put some examples from my Costa Rica, Oregon beach, and Hawaii sketch journals, to clarify stuff I talk about. It has given me a major yen to travel.

I'll include one of my most unlikely sketches here. It's an Indian water buffalo, pulling a wooden oxcart filled with picnickers down the beach. As they passed in front of my amazed eyes, I had the minimal presence of mind to snap some photos, but there was no time to draw them, of course. That evening I sketched the picture into my sketchbook off the screen of my digital camera.

Hope you like it. And my froggy poem. You can copy the poem and use it for anything you like. I don't care. Have fun!

I'll be uploading the Nature & Travel Sketch Journaling workbook this week, so keep an eye out for it. You'll get a notice if you've signed up for one in the right-hand panel.

Oops! I accidentally uploaded this to the Sketching in Nature blog! Well, I'm sorry if you see it in two different places! Many apologies!

Cheers!

Slight Ooops!

One of my valiant students has pointed out that the workshop workbook Nature Sketching Basics has a problem with page references ~ and boy, is she correct! (thanks Lorna!)

I figured out what happened: I inserted this lovely page with sketches of stilts and avocets (birds I drew at the Monterey Bay Aquarium) as page 2 after everything else in the book was proofed and ready to make into the PDF ~ and I totally forgot that this would necessitate changing ALL of the page references by one page.

In other words, if it says "go to page 17," you have to go to page 18. I can't believe I missed that. I've gone back through the file now and reloaded the corrected workbook to my site. I THINK I caught them all this time.

Well, if you already have your copy and it doesn't bother you to make the mental leap, okay. However, if it does give you fits, drop me a line that you'd like a replacement and I'll cheerfully send you a free replacement link. My contact email is on the workbook page, right at the top.

Hope that makes it okay! Sorry 'bout that. At least you know I will make things right if I have goofed, and also that I appreciate people pointing out any glitches they run across.

+++++++++++++

On a jollier note, I'm making great headway on the new Sketch/Journaling workbook.

This one is a lot of fun ~ mainly because I'm replacing many of the small b/w example pages in the old workbook with larger full-color ones ~ and that means that I'm riffling through all my travel/nature journals from Costa Rica, Hawaii, Iceland/England, New Zealand, and the Oregon Coast to spot good examples to use. Reliving all those wonderful adventures is a real kick. What a terrific little armchair vacation!

The example here shows how you can glue in a photo (this one has been cut out to make it more interesting) then draw out from it to blend it into the page. It's a stunning effect. You can draw the additional part in b/w or add color if you want. People always go gaga when they spot one of these in a sketchbook ~ it's an easy way to make people think you're pretty hot stuff with the sketch/journaling, and it's lots of fun to do. This one is straight-forward scenery, but you could make funny or amazing ones, too, with monsters creeping up or by creating unlikely juxtapositions of photos/drawings.

A few more weeks, and that workbook will hit the ether, too, so keep in touch if you want a copy.