Yesterday I undertook a project of massive proportions: I organized all my art stuff. It was one of my 2010 art goals, but I probably wouldn’t have done it so soon if we didn’t need the dining room table for Easter dinner. I spent over eight hours in total. First I sorted and found things to get rid of or give away. Then I used the extra space to find permanent homes for everything. I sorted all my supplies into multiple shoe boxes organized by medium. I was truly shocked at the number of pens I have – enough for a shoe box all their own.
I also made a small box of supplies to bring to my boyfriend’s house so that I would already have everything on hand without having to cart stuff along every time. This is what I included: a small sketchbook (about 7.5 x 6 inches); a ballpoint pen; kneaded eraser in a ziplock bag (so little pieces of lint don’t get stuck in it); a handheld pencil sharpener, graphite pencils (HB, B, 2B, 4B, ebony); Prismacolor colored pencils (black, sienna brown, crimson red, grass green, apple green, violet blue, and canary yellow); stabilo markers and fineliners; and sanguine, sepia and black Pitt pens. I might change up the pencil selection later.
After all this work yesterday, I feel like I have a clean slate in front of me. I spent today sketching various things (like Katie) and planning upcoming projects. Now that I really put things in order I am going to try my hardest to keep maintaining it. I am naturally prone to clutter, so it might be hard for me.
On a sadder note, I am sorry to hear about Danny Gregory’s wife Patti who died tragically last week. He put up a lovely tribute to her on his blog. Even though I loved art since I was a child, it was Danny’s online group Everyday Matters that originally got me into the daily sketching habit back in 2004. I know that a lot of other artists out there have a similar story, as many people have launched successful art careers since joining. I am keeping Danny and Jack in my prayers.

I spent most of today working on a tattoo design that I got as a commission (this is a detail). I did have a lot of fun and I thought it turned out well, especially for not having live lilies in front of me. I used a silk day lily as a model and I used my imagination to fill in all the other details (hence the blue stamen).
I thought I would have been burnt out by the time I finished. Instead, I feel energized and now want to go out and do more drawing.

This is my submission for March Virtual Paintout, which was based from Stavanger, Norway this month. What I loved about the location was the combination of green grass and blue sky found out in the more rural sections. It felt very springlike and inspiring to me. This particular view reminded me of something I might find in a children’s book illustration.
I made this picture using dip pen and watercolor wash in a 7 x 10 watercolor sketchbook. I’m not horribly pleased with this piece because I find it to be a little fussy and I wish I had tweaked the composition a little differently. I do think that I could possibly rework however, and I’d like to try it in colored pencil at some point.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

This is a sketch I made some time ago of my morning bagel while sitting in my cube at work. I find that when I make a small drawing early in the morning, my whole day feels more productive.
This week I’ve started a new diet of sorts, a detox, so to speak. This means that I’m not having bagels for breakfast anymore, or junk food in general. I’ve been having oatmeal with fruit and almond milk for breakfast this past week and I have to say it is surprisingly filling.
I’m not doing it for the purpose of losing weight so much as just eating well. It’s another incarnation of my theme this year, which is “purge and purify.”
Today I did get some sketching done, but everything “serious” that I tried to do ended up failing miserably. These kind of days come up for me from time to time, and the hardest thing will be to forget about it tomorrow when I start all over again.
These sketches are of a cat named Tigre, who I met last night while at a friend’s house. He was a very fat cat, but he kept flopping around in different positions so I didn’t really get past his head. I need to practice more with quick gesture sketches.


It makes me a little sad that most of my glimpses of nature are marred by things like bridges.
I haven’t gotten out(side) much for the past couple of months and I’m really craving it. This winter actually wasn’t that bad for New England compared to the snow that the Mid Atlantic states got, but I still hated it just as much. I sense that spring is coming though. Today it was in the 40’s and this weekend is supposed to be nice too. If it is decent out tomorrow I am going to get outside and do some nature sketching.
I made this picture using Google Street View. It is the bridge that connects Hinsdale, NH to Brattleboro, VT. I made it a little more colorful than it actually is.
Friday, February 26, 2010

These are some sketches of Reuben and Olivia, some Whippet dogs that I have gotten to know over the past few months. Whippets are extremely fidgety dogs and they have a lot of energy. This makes sketching them while awake both challenging and rewarding. I wish I had more opportunities like this to sketch living, moving things. I have a fear that my drawings might become cramped or static if I don’t get the practice.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I made this quirky drawing while in the Jury Pool waiting room (it was too big to scan at once so I had to stitch two scans together). I had only been called in for Jury Duty one other time, and not in this particular courthouse. By the time I drove into the city, found the courthouse, figured out how the parking garage worked, went through security, and found the waiting room, I was feeling quite out of sorts. I had a lot of energy in the beginning of the day and worked on this sketch from 8:00 until about 10:30. Then my arm began to ache so I settled into my chair and did…nothing. Well, I did watch a few game shows and then some soaps. I also eavesdropped on a conversation between two public school teachers bellyaching about their benefits packages. They ended up sending everybody home and never used a single one of us for a jury, but it was not a wasted day for me. In my opinion, I got an interesting spread in my sketchbook and some time off to think.
Here is a blog post by Roz about her jury duty sketching experience. New Englanders aren’t always the friendliest people so I didn’t want to run the risk of drawing anybody while in an enclosed space, but it would have been interesting for sure.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
In my last post I wrote about how I was trying to spend more time offline. One of the things I have started doing is visiting the library and reading more books. I struggle with books because many that I pick up are duds and either bore me or depress me so I never end up finishing. Sometimes I like to read a book that someone I trust recommended to me because I have more confidence that I will actually like it.
Recently, I read the book Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo about John Drewe and John Myatt who carried off an elaborate art forgery scam for years in the 80’s and 90’s. Even though it is a nonfiction book I found it very entertaining and it felt more like reading a novel to me. John Drewe was the classic con man sociopath type who convinced everyone that he was a physicist and involved with the upper echelons of the British government. John Myatt was a single father who trying to make it as an artist by selling paintings “in the style of” famous artists but barely paying his bills. Eventually, Drewe convinced Myatt to paint outright forgeries while Drewe sold them at auction making a huge profit. Even though some of the paintings were quite bad, Drewe was able to convince people that they were originals by infiltrating into museum archives and falsifying documents to create fake provenances (hence the title). Eventually, it all came crashing down when some persistent art experts became suspicious after catching a few sloppy mistakes and Myatt ended up cooperating with the investigators.
As someone who went to school for history, I really appreciated all the research that the authors did to come up with this book. I also developed a loathing for this John Drewe character who really ended up doing a lot of damage by contaminating historical archives, not to mention all the forged paintings that are still floating around out there thought to be originals. John Myatt was the most interesting to me. It’s true that he was in a vulnerable place when Drewe led him astray. However, I still wonder what goes on in a person’s mind when they get caught up in something they clearly know is wrong, yet ignore their conscience for years. He did end up going to prison for a couple of months and actually used this incident to launch a legitimate art career painting “genuine fakes.”
One thing I would have liked about the book is if they would have included a photo of Drewe and Myatt so I could have pictured what they looked like. Likewise, I would have liked to see some examples of the forged artwork. The artwork that Myatt was forging was of modern artists that I personally don’t have much interest in, but I still would have liked to see some examples. I did some googling and did find this article which shows some pictures and also Myatt’s website.
Friday, February 19, 2010

About a year and a half ago I stopped watching TV at home. It was mainly because I moved and the TV was in a very cold room, which was uncomfortable and I had to go out of my way to turn it on. In the beginning it was such a relief not to spend mindless hours in front of the TV. I started to do other things again, like read books, draw more and cook for myself. After some time though, I began replacing the time I spent watching TV with time wasted online. The effect was the same. I was passively consuming instead of actually doing things. I’ve come to realize that I need to reign myself in once again.
I’ve recently come across some articles that dealt with this topic. Michael Nobbs featured this guest post by Laura Barnard on how to find offline inspiration. It has some good ideas, especially the library idea which I have used a lot myself. In this post, Kate wrote about trying to set a routine working in time that is banned from the computer entirely. I am thinking about trying something like this out myself, maybe by pre-posting blogs so I don’t even have an excuse to turn on the computer. I will let everyone know how this all works out.
I made this drawing after I made an impulse purchase at the mall last weekend. I never did have my own Christmas tree but I am planning on it in the future, so clearanced ornaments aren’t that bad after all. They are pretty cute too, and I might make a sketch of them.