Danny Gregory and I Discuss Visual Journaling From May 2008: Part one of a two-part podcast. Danny Gregory, author of "An Illustrated Life," talks to me about journaling, art media, and materials…The second part is in the same location. Be sure to check out the great interviews he does with other artists included in his book!
Finding Bits of Time Ricë Freeman-Zachery, author of "Creative Time and Space," talks to me about finding time to be creative. (Taped October 23, 2009.)
This is a "you sort of had to be there post," but since I still can't stop laughing I have to share it with you on a Saturday, so that if you are going to waste any time on the recommended sites at least you won't be at work, right?
Awhile back an acquaintance asked me how to pronounce a couple things. He wasn't taking my word for anything, however. Let's face it he hardly knows me and knows little about me, and when my pronounciation suggestion didn't fall in line with his concept he declined it.
In a desire to be helpful I went to a pronunciation site (Forvo), that night, and looked the main word of contention up, sent him a link, and received this reply: "That's certainly one way to pronounce it."
I give up. Or I thought I did.
The other day when my internet was failing (well grindingly slow, it's the same thing isn't it?) my computer guy Bob and I chatted on the phone while we waited for things to download and upgrade. I had a horrible thought, "Wait, Bob, can you see me through that little camera doohicky right now?"
We were doing iChat and he had the con so he could work on my machine remotely. "What possible good would that do me Roz? I need to see what is on your screen," he replied. (Bob can be very matter of fact and sensible, which is what I need at moments of computer stress.)
"Good," I said with relief, "because I was just inspecting a string of cobwebs on my CD tower…whew." When someone else is controlling my computer I feel free to let my mind wander
Then Bob decided that I needed cheering up (he wisely always thinks this) so he took me to Elayne Riggs' site for some laughs.
While he was sorting through some posts, I, safe in the assurance that all was now well with my computer and Bob couldn't see me, took a moment to compare the relative heights of my Pantone swatchbooks (it had been a long day).
Bob, unaware of my activities, directed me to this fun little animation of a cat causing no end of trouble. I don't live with cats, but have friends, including Bob, who do, and they all swear cats behave exactly like this—and I've seen them do it. (There is a entire site of this man's animations—Simon's Cat. I've yet to go there as I think it would be too dangerous.)
Sensing that I still wasn't quite jovial enough after the stress of computer malfunctions Bob pulled up a series of fake pronunciations, also highlighted on Elayne's site. After about two of these I was laughing so hard I thought I would pee in my pants. (Safe in the knowledge that Bob couldn't see that either.)
Then I had to tell him the pronunciation "incident." In part it explained why I was laughing so hard (not all the fake pronunciations are hilarious). We agreed that it was a wonderful bit of serendipity that led him to lead me to that site.
"Ephemeral" and "haute couture" are pretty good.
Then all hell broke loose (and I punctured Bob's eardrums with laughter, and fell off my chair—which he didn't see) when I learned, finally, after all these years (and learning French in Australia from teachers with Australian accents) the correct pronunciation of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
I dare you to listen to it. But not while attempting to sort your Pantone books.
Have a great big silly day. Humor will revive you. And if anyone should be so foolish as to ask you how to pronounce something, you know where to send them!
If the above embedded video doesn't run, please see "Making a Visual Journal with Paper Scraps" on YouTube. (Sorry about the reference at the end of the video to check out a post Monday, April 2. I finished making the video sooner than anticipated and crunched it for output before I remembered I had that reference. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday there are three new and unrelated posts, I hope you'll enjoy them.)
The above video shows the transformation from scraps into a journal ready for sketching and collage. As always, when the video I'm making is through crunching into its final form I think of a thing or two to add as comments, hence the notes you'll find in this post.
The good news is that though the book seemed over stuffed to my usual tastes and preferences when I made the film it has relaxed down nicely over the past several days. It's still more full than I know, having done this before, I should have made it, but it's within a tolerance range.
I would like to reiterate my recommendation that when you are creating your signatures with your scraps you try to keep it down to 4 to 6, but 4 to 5 is best, thicknesses of paper at each sewing hole. When you are gathering a signature together this might mean that you can include that lovely two sheet (8-page) mini-signature at the center of your full-sized signature if you simply move a smaller folded scrap up or down along the signature fold away from the holes used by the mini-signature, so it falls at a point there there are fewer thicknesses of paper that you'll be punching through. (Of course you're still adding bulk so you may not eliminate the problem, only you will be able to judge.)
Be sure to include at least one full-sized page set in each signature—in other words if your book is 6 x 8 inches include at least one 12 x 8 inch sheet of paper, folded with the grain (parallel to the 8 inch side in this example) into 6 x 8 inch pages (four pages since we count the front and back sides of the folded sheet).
Including a full-sized page set like this in each signature adds not only to the structural stability of the book, but it also works for the visual stability, giving your eye a WALL every so often through which you can't see the jangle of various bits. You'll come to welcome those pages as a time to stretch out to bigger vistas and images or as a place on which you can simply work "normally."
Over time as you make these journals you will get a feel for what you can get away with in filling your journals. You will be limited by your dexterity in sewing a really thick signature to the spine (by the fourth signature it can be almost impossible to get your fingers and your needle and the holes all in alignment if the signatures are really plump).
The width of your spine and the distance you like to use between your signatures will also be a limiting factor. To accommodate thicker signatures you can increase your normal distance between signatures, thus increasing the overall width of your spine, but keep in mind that since these signatures are joined to the cover and not each other you are also increasing the visible gap between the last page of each signature and the first page of the next signature. This really bothers some people so you'll want to pre-think your own tolerance for this.
Also keep in mind your typical mode of working with collage. Are you someone who really lays it on thick—lots of layers of additional paper, maybe also layers and layers of acrylic media, some of which might be dimensional? Then you might be looking at some real bulk added at the "using the book" stage. You'll want to pare back the pages you add at the sewing.
One way to accommodate more papers in your book without bulking your signatures up is to create more signatures, all of which are thinner than you might normally anticipate. So for instance if you made a book with 6 signatures each with only three thicknesses of paper at each hole, all of your signatures would be thinner than the ones in my featured book. With a little bit of finessing you could add minimal space on the spine between the signatures and end up with a book that is probably not that much wider at the spine, even though it has two more signatures. If you increase the number of signatures you also allow yourself more options for stitch variation and decoration.
Be careful, however, that you don't just use the additional signatures as an excuse to add even more papers and bulk up everything so that you're in worse shape than before!
I tend to use a medium weight book board for all my books except albums (then I use the thickest bookboard I can find). MCBA's bookboard (which is where I get mine) is something like .07. I have to check.
If you are going to do more than 6 signatures sewn to your spine, especially in a book you're going to be adding MORE to, I really suggest that you bump up your bookboard thickness, just so you have more strength on the spine. Remember all the holes you punch for sewing are actually making the board weaker, so it's best to start with a thicker, stronger board in those instances. (It will make your punching more difficult however. To save your hands you might want to experiment on scraps of bookboard using an electric drill.)
If you would like to see the filled collage journal mentioned in the above video you can read Collage and Sketching: A Look inside a Recent Journal—Wrap Up. In that post I provide some tips for paper selection as well as folding your fold outs so that they work smoothly.
Those videos will give you a sense of how I play with the different page sizes, run through mini-series of paintings, carry color through over several pages, etc.
Everyone will have a unique approach to working with a book like this. Embrace that. Don't approach it as "there is a right way." Just let the book lead you into play.
Do not worry about "ruining" pages, because it is after all play. You can always make another book.
Look for subject matter which requires a gatefold's worth of attention. At the same time keep your eyes open for those subjects which only require a brief note and can easily fit on the tiny pages sprinkled throughout your book.
Note: A gatefold is a full page spread with fold out pages on both fore edges—so a wide vista to fill.
Balance your need for working chronologically with the joy of embracing chance. Allow both in your new journal if that's a stretch for you. Conversely if you are a "fill whatever page I want" person, use the challenge of the oddly shaped pages to work through the book chronologically training your eye to see and create connections.
When faced with two pages visible at the same time, consider how you might use them as a whole, how you might use them for two types of subject that relate or don't relate to each other, but don't sweat it if relationships aren't immediately recognizable to you. In other words, enjoy the serendipity that occurs, and don't fret if it isn't appearing regularly.
Use the opportunity of smaller pages to experiment with new media. Sometimes when there is only a small piece of paper to "risk" people find themselves able to be more adventuresome. See if that's you. I recommend that you record your experiment's findings on the next full page, or on the inside back cover for useful future reference.
Fill your book and set it aside. Come back to it after a couple months have passed. Read it as if for the first time. Ask yourself what you were thinking? Why were you attracted to a certain subject? What was going on in your life (if it isn't stated on the page you'll have to recall this and I recommend that you make a note of that at the back of the journal to remind yourself in 10 years)? How does all this information shape the result?
Most of all, allow yourself to play with the new dimensions, shapes, patterns, and colors that have presented themselves in your new book of scraps.
For people who don't know April is International Fake Journal Month. (Come on, the reason I picked April is obvious isn't it? That link will take you to an explanation of the event.)
A friend emailed me this morning and suggested that I'd been rather silent on the subject of International Fake Journal Month (IFJM—you can find it in the category cloud of this blog). I thought she was silly, because of course I've been posting about it. But then when I searched the category I discovered I haven't posted about it here since JANUARY 17!
I haven't even posted much over on the Official International Fake Journal Month Blog because I feel, in the past few years I've posted instructions on prepping or not prepping, selecting a journal, selecting media, developing a character—all the stuff you need to think about (and then forget) in order to have a great IFJM. (My last post on that blog was March 6!)
I've pointed that blog's readers to the various helpful posts and have just trusted that they are taking appropriate steps.
Perhaps I thought I was posting more because I have been thinking about it a lot through March as I typically do. I assumed I must have posted more about it.
It has been a truly crazy early spring for me (both in weather, I'm going to go ride my bike in a few minutes!) and in work. Taking 3 classes at the Atelier has taken up all my "free" time. Which leads me to my plan for IFJM this year—something very simple.
I never explain the actual plan before the project starts, but let's just say that at the beginning of March I came up with an hilarious plan that the friend who wrote to me and Dick both loved. I've been doing mental gymnastics all month long trying to figure out how I could execute that plan and still participate in the rest of my life. IFJM has to be about balance in some way for me.
This past week I came up with an easier approach, something in the 30-minutes-a-day range. (I'm sorry Terri, the Frank idea would have taken 60 to 90 minutes a day—but he is going to make a cameo, and I may work with him next year because Dick has totally bonded with Frank in a way he never has any of my "acquisitions." And for people who want to meet Frank I'll post a cross post here when he makes an appearance in my postings on the Official International Fake Journal Month Blog.)
The new plan seems doable but it also requires some paper testing. So I'll be doing that this evening.
In the meantime I can tell everyone that the buttons have arrived. They are actually going to be available at the start of the month (details to follow on the other blog after I get information from the post office on mailing costs). You can see the button at the other blog—it's at the top of the right-hand column. "Details Matter," is this year's catch phrase. (Yes, that mirrors my life, the buttons always do.)
And there will again be a drawing, from participants, for a journal prize. Details on that will be posted in the next few days as well.
So things are moving a long here, and I seem to have found a nice bit of balance. I hope you'll pop over to the other blog and participate in the fun. Keeping a fake journal for a month can teach you a lot about yourself, your journaling practice, and your life, even though you aren't the person keeping the journal. (I've written a lot about this on the other blog, and that's for sure, not my false rememberings.)
Think about joining in—it's not too late to grab a journal and channel another character.
Above: St. Paul artist Pat Beaubien discusses her nature/travel journals at the March 2012 MCBA Visual Journal Collective. Here she shows a watercolor of a meadow near Grand Marais, MN where she rents a cabin as frequently as possible. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
First, before we go any further, Pat Beaubien doesn't currently have a website so what I was able to snap photos of is what you'll be able to see until she develops a website. You might encourage Pat to do that, she's tired of hearing me say it. If you would like to contact Pat with questions about her artwork you can reach her at patbeaubien@gmail.com.
On March 19, St. Paul artist Pat Beaubien came to the MCBA Visual Journal Collective to show her nature/travel journals to the members.
Pat is a watercolor artist who also uses pens and pencils of different sorts, "Give me one and I'll try it out," she said laughing, when someone asked if she ever used watersoluble colored pencils. In her hands ordinary tools are given a new life and direction.
Left: a stack of Pat's journals ready for discussion, along with her small leather pencil case which holds all of her supplies—several sizes of Niji Waterbrushes (including a flat), a Staedtler Pigment Liner, a Pentel Pocket Brush pen, and her mini palette filled with Daniel Smith Watercolors. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Pat's idea of travel is to go to one destination and spend 2 or three weeks there sketching—not moving about trying to see a travel guide's highlight points. It is more satisfying to get to know one place, and Pat does this through her painting.
Until her recent retirement Pat taught art to elementary school children. She would use her vacations to travel and paint. She would sell her paintings, made on site, to fund her trips. (When you view the stunning beauty of Pat's work you can understand how this was possible.)
During the school year, however her painting side was dormant. Teaching took her focus and energy. "Then in 2007 I took Roz's nature journaling class in Grand Marais," said Pat, "and took to heart her comment about doing a little sketching and painting everyday. It's amazing how quickly you can improve when you work everyday."
(Note: Pat was already more "improved" than most artists I see when I had her in class. I'm glad I had an effect on her practice.)
Left: Cone flowers and other blooms in a Grand Marais garden, share space with a local artist's garden sculpture. Grand Marais may have more artists per capita than any other town in the U.S. There are things to look at and purchase everywhere. This watercolor sketch is in one of her 9 x 12 inch Fabriano Venezia journals. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Pat still uses the same mini kid's palette she got in class (refilled many times), Niji waterbrushes (also replaced over time), and Staedtler Pigment Liners. She'll experiment with new pens as people suggest them and she has become quite fond of the Pentel Pocket Brush pen.
The palette contains the following Daniel Smith watercolors: Quin Gold, Azo Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Quin Pink. Napth. Maroon, Cobalt Teal, Phthalo. Turquoise, Indanthrone Blue, and Zinc White. The set originally contained Buff Titanium but Pat says she hasn't replaced that. Also she is thinking about replacing the Cobalt Teal to get a different range in her mixes.
Pat will sometimes do a light pencil sketch before moving to watercolor. Other times Pat will sketch directly with pen and then apply watercolor. Her method, she explained, is just what happens when she is seated and ready to paint.
While she initially continued making books of the type she learned to make in Grand Marais (8 x 10 inch sewn-on the spine journals), the urge to just paint was great, so she moved on to the Fabriano Venezia 9 x 12 inch journals. (Pat loves the large page size in both these books, and you only have to look at the results to see that's a great size for her work.)
Left: Pat sketches lakeside in the North Woods. Often one of her artist friends Nanette Lee will join her—you can see Nan in the bottom left of the image. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
As she spends more time up north exploring, revisiting painting sites she has previously discovered, Pat has considered returning to flat paintings but she was unsure how to store them. The Collective threw out a variety of portfolio options she could use to house the final paintings in "journal" form.
After her presentation and a round of questions the 25 attendees gathered around the table to get a personal look through Pat's journals, and continue the conversation. We all left inspired and ready to jump back into our own journals after our trip into nature with Pat.
Below: A view of a stone bridge on Lake Superior, using Daniel Smith Watercolors. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
If you would like to know a little bit more about Grand Marais and some of the artists living and visiting there you can check out this short film on the yearly "Plein Air Brush Off." Tom Winterstein supplied this link after the topic came up in discussion.
Above: Cropped portion of my 8 x 8 inch journal page where I've pasted in a sketch on gridded paper made during a recent bike ride. (I'm looking towards Lake of the Isles not Harriet.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Readers of Roz Wound Up will know that thanks to my friend, artist Ken Avidor, I have an growing fascination with snow piles. (In fact this resulted in the creation of a zine about snow piles last winter.)
Readers also know that I love riding my bike everyday if possible. But I can't ride outside when there is snow and ice. (I know that people do, I'm not one of those people, so let's just drop it.)
Recently we've had abnormally high temperatures in Minnesota. We've also had very little snow here, that is until about 3 weeks ago when all my friends went on their spring break vacations (so that was good planning on their part since they don't like snow). Great mounds of snow were shoveled away that week and parking lots and roads were cleared. Then the high temperatures returned.
And because the roads had been ice free and cleared immediately I was able to get back on dry roads before all the snow piles were melted!
So on March 14, when it was 52 degrees Fahrenheit I was able to bike down the Greenway and see this huge, HUGE pedestal of snow down in an open field next to the dog park at Lake of the Isles. I went by it for a couple days before I decided that I should actually stop and sketch the huge sculpture of snow. That's what I did on this date.
Then off I pedaled to the turn around point and home again.
Not too many days later the temperatures climbed even higher—into the 80s. As you also know, I've been taking a couple classes over at the Atelier to reboot my brain. One of those classes is Memory Drawing. Don't ask me to explain it because you sort of have to be there. It is vastly interesting, the instructor Stephan Orsak is intelligent, curious, engaging, and full of enthusiasm for his topic. He also delights in assigning a myriad of homework assignments that build skills and lead to insights. I recommend this class. Actually the real reason I can't describe this class is that I have to get my homework done and don't have time!
One of the exercises Orsak now has us doing is a "daily composition" exercise from Nicolaides. How we got to this exercise is a whole other story. Let's just agree that's where we are now. To accomplish this exercise you allow your attention to be captured by something for a few seconds during the day (or you notice that your attention is attracted to something, depending on how you are in the world). You don't stare. It needs to be something live, that's moving (I include clouds in my definition of live). You only look at it briefly. Most of my daily compositions have come from something I've seen for less than 3 seconds.
Then at the end of the day you draw that scene in a quick gesture sketch taking into account the value pattern (light and dark) and other compositional elements which first attracted your attention to this scene in the first place.
The idea is not to come up with a finished drawing, but to capture the essential thing that caught your attention, and of course to focus on the value pattern and compositional elements. You very quickly discover that your mind notices a lot in a flash of attention—you just have to pause and recall it. Ultimately it's a way to build a visual vocabulary so that you know how things are, without having to have a photographic reference for instance.
As you can imagine this exercise is a nightmare for me because I only really like to sketch from life—when something is in front of me.
Also, all day long there are moments when I might take my journal out and sketch if it was just Regular Roz behaving in Regular Roz Mode. But instead, because of the homework I find that I am actually sketching less in my journal because I'm thinking "Hey, I need to save this image for tonight's assignment." (Let's face it, because of my work I'm often alone and I can go days without seeing something live in interesting lighting conditions!)
What has tended to happen is that I'll go 4 hours holding that image in my mind (not thinking about it at all), see something else, think about them both for a little bit, and then do a memory drawing sketch for the "discarded" one, save the other in my mind, and continue on. The end result is that I've got lots of little gesture/thumbnail like sketches now so my volume is going back up, but they aren't on the spot sketches, and they also aren't after a whole day's distance. (Dick always said I never did an assignment in school as it was meant to be done. Since there was that essay on a modern poet about Loudon Wainwright III and the honors English paper that was one long footnote à la Flann O'Brien, to name just two instances, I sort of have to keep my mouth shut on that one.)
Left: Daily Composition drawn from memory of the same snow pile, after some more hot days diminished it and I passed it on another bike ride. On gray Canson Mi Tientes paper (5 x 7 inches) with Staedtler Pigment Liner and a white Sharpie poster pen. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
I thought you would enjoy seeing the memory drawing from a later date, after more heat, for a couple reasons.
First you get to see what happens to the snow pile, and since we're human we all love a narrative thread.
Second, and most important to me, in the intervening time from the morning when I saw the pile until when I did the drawing my mind organized the space of the composition to include the fence that was right in front of me and some depth between me and the snow pile in the field below. Also my brain arranged the receeding tree line, lake, and opposite shore in ways I couldn't quite crasp when I was standing right there looking at the larger pile on the earlier date.
Third, in comparing the two sketches it's interesting to me that when I'm rushed (a little sweaty and chilled) that I spend time getting the main item and taking a lot of notes about what I see, instead of trying to work out how to capture that whole scene. But my process is still to understand what I am seeing.
Is the second drawing a great drawing? Nope. Is it correct? Nope. But it is a fascinating document to me, showing how my mind works after it gets to mull something over for a bit. And how my brain works when I don't just jump into the thing that attracts me (such as the eye of an animal, or in the case of the first snow pile, the size of the sculptural lump of snow).
At the time of the viewing of the snow pile on that final day it was only about 18 inches tall, if that (so it is shown too large in my memory drawing), but you can also get a sense of the rate at which heavily compacted snow melts when the temperatures rise.
Will there be more snow piles to sketch this year? It's Minnesota and we've had snow-filled Aprils and snow days in May, so it's possible. These two sketches help book-end an observational experience for me.
My fingers are crossed for a clear bike path until next winter.
In the above embedded video you'll see a male red-tailed hawk bringing a carcass to the nest. You will also find live streaming video of the nest and links to other "segments" of interest. Debra Silver wrote to me about this. I've seen other live cams. This has proven very fun to watch. Spend sometime hawk watching today even if it is rainy where you are. As I am writing this (Friday) the female is sitting in the nest and a lovely breeze is lifting her feathers lightly now and then. A true predator, when distance song birds squeek she turns her head in interest to zero in on them.
Left: A sketch with a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's Calligraphy Pen and diluted washes of Schmincke gouache on a 9 x 12 inch page in a Fabriano Venezia journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Since I've been unable to find a local French Bulldog and have exhausted my photos of those I've bumped into, but don't have contact information for, I'm reduced to drawing them from memory—not something that's satisfying to me.
So if you're local and have a French Bulldog please contact me. I need a life-model.
As for the one-eyed thing, it's a theme, you've probably noticed.
Left: Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's Calligraphy Pen with gouache background and text. In a 9 x 12 inch Fabriano Venezia journal. You can see the edge of the page, the gutter, on the left where the color changes. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
What started earlier as a sketch of the head of a dog-park dog turned into something totally different as I doodled later—just because it's fun to move the pen around on this paper. (He looked like a Jasper to me.)
Above: Scraps of paper that I've gathered from other projects. Read below for more information. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Last fall before a collage class I gathered materials to do my demonstrations. I ended up with a lot of blue and beige materials. After the event I was looking at the left over materials. I was struck by the color themes and I decided they would make a fun collage journal, along the lines of my "Adjusting P10" journal which had a mix of papers of all sizes and types.
The above papers include a variety of printmaking papers (including Magnani Pescia eggshell blue, Folio, Gutenberg, and Rives BFK). There are also watercolor papers that I prepainted for use on my journal covers.
I worked to organize these papers into four signatures with the blue and beige colors running throughout. I am working on a short video that will show the finished papers with collaged items in place, waiting to be sewn into the book (it will be a sewn-on-the-spine book) as well as the bound book before I work in it.
I think it is useful to see these before and after "photos" because it becomes more clear to readers what was already in place before I sketched or collaged on a paage in the course of a session. What emerges is the skeleton of elements I responded to, the color thread weaves through the book, and the variation of surfaces. These are all fun elements to play with in your visual journal.
While I work on the video I wanted to encourage you to take a second or third look at your paper scraps and see what sort of journal you can make out of them. Start sorting them into "like-minded piles."
A master page size is essential for a majority of the pages for the structural integrity of the book, but don't discount little scraps which can be folded and transformed into a "signature within a signature" or work as decorative collage elements on larger pages.
By creating a book with a variety of page sizes you'll impact the visual flow of your journal even before you begin working in the book—and that can be a very exciting way to start a new journaling adventure.
There are hundreds of reasons why I don't want an iPad, but the other day I saw this video and thought there's a lot of fun to be had with an iPad too! Of course Stefan Marjoram's obvious skill doesn't come with the iPad!
Marjoram talks about his design and brush decisions as he moves along. I think this is a gem of a short video for people interested in what can be done with the iPad as a sketching tool. Apple should pay him to do demos!
Also if you follow the link you'll find more videos from Urban Sketchers. While there are other fun videos there, you may also find several that seem to spend more time focusing on the surroundings than showing the artist at work, or even the finished art. Maybe those video artists feel in that way they will convey to us the sense of the surroundings in which the artist worked. I find those types of videos unsatisfying: I want the focus on the artist working, and a nice view of the final piece. Marjoram's short video is a perfect blend of surroundings and showing the art develop.
Marjoram's video is also the best argument for getting an iPad that I've seen. I'll always be a paper girl, but…
