Visual Journal Collective - Treasured object night

On Monday night the MCBA Visual Journal Collective met with a topic of drawing a treasured object. Each member brought an object to draw and a story about why the object was important to them. It was fun to draw everyone's stuff, although I didn't draw very many objects, time just flew.
I did manage to draw Roz (see above) while everyone on the other side of the table was introducing themselves and telling about their object. She is working to infiltrate as many journals as possible in her lifetime. You can follow the link or click the icon on the sidebar for more information about her project.
Roz brought her toucan model, Hector (a rubber puppet), he was on the table while everyone was discussing their object and I added him in. He was such fun to draw I went to the table to draw him directly during our group drawing time.

Of course because I spent time painting Hector in I didn't have time to do anymore sketches, oh well. It was fun to draw Hector and he caused me to look at some of my daughter's toys, most of which are on the way out of the house, with new eyes. Maybe I need a live in studio "life" model to draw when "there is nothing to draw". I will have to see what I can find.
Our Visual Journal Collective leader, moderator, and champion journaler Roz Stendahl has a free online workshop coming up! Roz's energy is amazing and her ideas are fantastic, I really recommend that all of you take advantage of being her student (for free). The course is being offered through Strathmore, follow the link and sign up. It is a free class, Roz's is the third in a series, and I know it will be great. She is going to talk about choosing paper type and finding materials and how to get going on keeping a visual journal complete with handouts and video lessons. It is a four week class and free, what better way to start the warm months of outdoor sketching than with a few new ideas or a fresh approach?
Happy Sketching!

Minnesota State Fair Sketch-OUT (part three)

I know, I know, I have already talked about this sketching trip to the state fair, but I still have a couple of great sketches to show. One of a chicken, a rooster really, that started at the fair as a pen sketch like the rest of my work from that day and got altered later that evening at home by some paint.

I have had a hard time balancing sketching and painting in the field. I want to add color, I add color often when I sketch at home, but for some reason when I am out, especially somewhere busy, it just seems more streamlined to only use pen. I did not particularly like this sketch, before the paint. Chickens are never still, they bob and wiggle, and are just generally in motion and I found it hard to sketch them with any detail. When I was going through my sketches from the fair at home and talking with my husband about our respective days, I grabbed my watercolors and Niji brush and decided to experiment with remembered color. I have to say the chicken is now a bright patch in the middle of my fair drawings and I resolve to try and add more paint while sketching in the future.

The last sketches I have from that day are of our leader, Roz Stendahl. She has a bit of a personal challenge going on right now to infiltrate as many journals as possible in the next year. It is a contest as well, with the possibility of winning a beautiful journal made by Roz herself (follow the link in Roz's name for full contest details).

While we met at the end of the day Roz was talking to Tom, a new sketcher joining us, I was chatting with other fellow sketchers and I decided I had the perfect view to sketch Roz and join in on infiltration project fun. Of course when you sketch someone, they move sometimes and you cannot finish the sketch, as is the case with my first drawing. Roz turned to profile and never twisted back to the three-quarter view that I had started, oh well.

I did add a small profile sketch at the bottom, but I like the larger three-quarter view better.

That is my last fair sketch, I promise. But it was fun and I highly recommend getting out to sketch. You can check out other sketcher's work from our fair trip at Urban Sketchers Twin Cities and Roz Wound Up.