Let them eat cake and draw too

Last night, the Visual Journaling group run by Roz Stendahl met at MCBA. There were loads of people there, including some new faces. We had Molly Anthony come in to talk to us about her found recipe box project. The project is very interesting and Molly is a fantastic writer, I highly recommend her blog about the project. She talked and brought in baked goods for us to draw. Always exciting to eat cake and it turns out it is equally fun to draw cake. Although the texture of cake does pose a bit of a challenge. I tried to emulate the texture by using watercolor pencils and sandpaper over a wet sheet. The shavings "melt" into the paper but stay textured or granular looking.

Last night's meeting made me realize that I have been a bit off my game in terms of drawing and art lately - basically not doing any of either. I have a goal now to do something everyday for the next month, including work on a shoe inspired piece for an upcoming show. I am excited. Unfortunately, that means my first task is to finish the rearranging/clean-up of my studio that began three weeks ago and is still in complete disarray and chaos. Oh well, it will take a day or two, and will feel great when it is done, and in the mean time I will be back at carrying my sketchbook around to catch anything that seems exciting or interesting down on paper.

Sketch in sharpie pen, watercolor, watercolor pencil, on 9x9 Aquabee spiral bound sketchbook.

Owl parade continues

Here is another addition to the owl collection from this school year.

This example comes from my Craft/Print lab class; the assignment was to use your name as book content and create your own lettering and theme. Students then used an accordion structure and paste paper element to create a complete work. This is the example that I finished as a part of doing daily demonstrations to instruct the students and as always to create a high quality example to motivate the group.

Visual Journaling Sketch-Out

Today I went to the Washington County Fairgrounds for the Harvest Shepherd's Festival. I went as a part of the visual journal group I have been going to with Roz Stendahl. Only two other members were there as far as I know, but I had a good time anyway and am glad I went.

It was a cold, semi-rainy day, so not ideal weather for sketching at an outdoor event.

The barns were not so bad though, and I got a few sketches of goats, sheep, and llamas today. I do not usually draw animals from life, they tend to move too much and it becomes challenging, so today was an experience. I learned out about waiting for an animal to turn back around and about doing quick gesture drawings to capture the idea rather than all the details. I also do not usually draw in public so it was distracting at first to get in the groove an ignore the milling people.

That being said I think I did ok and I am excited to go out and sketch again. I also got a couple of photos and I am hoping to do a small painting or more complete drawing from them in the future.

Owl on parade

Cleaning photos off my camera and editing photos for self portraits in my drawing I class tomorrow, I found this tile I had made earlier this winter. It is stoneware with glass and glaze. It is one of three clay owls I made this year.

MCBA Visual Journal Collective.

Last monday night I went down to the Minnesota Center of Book Arts (MCBA) to meet with the Visual Journal collective for their monthly meeting (link will take you to Roz Stendahl's blog about the meeting; she is the group's leader). I have been going to meetings since the beginning of the year and I throughly enjoy the group and the chance it gives me to draw something new once a month - oh - and the kick in the pants it gives me to draw as much as possible during any regular week.

Last week we had a special speaker, Karen Engelbretson, who is a local graphic designer and botanical artist. She talked to us about drawing botanicals as well as using our art on stuff, rather than just having it sit in journals or sketchbooks.

As always it was a good time. These pears were each done during a five minute sketch that night using a sharpie pen.

The first in a line of owls.

This year in my classes as I have been doing demonstrations and examples, I have been repetitively using an owl as my subject matter whenever possible. This started by accident and since noticing my tendency towards owls, I have just embraced it and have been very intentional about my choice to use an owl.

This has created a body of owl work through the school year. I think the most interesting part has been using an owl as a subject or theme across a wide variety of mediums.

In a simple effort to try and post more, here is the newest in an upcoming parade of owls as I bring home my examples and projects to pack up for the summer.

This owl was created this week as I began a unit on block printing with an introductory project. The print block is small, 2 x 3 inches, and carved out of and easy cut rubber sort of product. So it is more of a stamp, but it is printed with water-based speedball ink on regular white paper.

Virtual Paintout - Canary Islands

I have finally finished another Virtual Paintout image after only beginning images the last two months. This month's location is the Canary Islands. I have picked out several more map views and hope to do another later this week.