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.)
My friend Diane sent me a link to this wonderful 3 minute video of James Gurney doing a plein air sketch in his sketchbook using gouache. He is amazing. He removed two portraits he wasn't happy with from his page, put in a background tone and then painted…well just go watch the thing.
I think gouache is amazing, and fun to use.
But when you see someone like Gurney whose talent is so superlative work with it, well you just feel happy.
You might also want to watch this video if you don't understand the fuss everyone is always making about "values."
Join us from 7 to 9 p.m. at the March 18, 2013 MCBA Visual Journal Collective Meeting for an evening with artist and architect James Nutt—to unlock your digital artist. Nutt will share with us why he believes the iPad is an incredible tool for the simple sketch to gallery grade art.
Nutt is excited about the new drawing programs for the iPad because, "there comes a time when powerful and complex technology evolves enough to lose the complexity and become user friendly. Think 3d modeling previous to Google Sketchup. Digital art was in the hands of highly trained Illustrator and Corel programs costing +$1,000 but recently evolved into a quick learning curve $4 dollar program and your finger."
"It also doesn't hurt that you have every tool in a professional artist studio at your fingertips with no cleanup, no scanning—and you can finally paint in the dark while everyone else watches TV!"
The evening is free and open to all adult sketchers of all skill levels. Nutt will have examples of his digital sketching on hand and he will demonstrate how he uses his iPad for sketching.
James Nutt, AIA, is a local architect/artist and constant sketcher practicing at NewStudio Architecture in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. James is very active in the urban sketchers community and an invited blogger on www.urbansketchers-midwest.blogspot.com and www.urbansketchers-twincities.blogspot.com. James has designed many award-winning buildings and was most recently a finalist in Ralph Rapson Traveling Study Fellowship. He believes "an artist should draw to create, record, ask questions, or tell a story and never to create a beautiful drawing. Honesty and craft are the true generators of great work and most people are blocked before they start with the worry of worthiness."
Come and join us for a great evening of peeking into digital sketching. Be sure to bring your journals as well. We'll share current work at the end of the session.
ANOTHER REMINDER: People participating in the Not-So-Blank-Page Collaborative Journal Project need to bring their 2 pages of artwork to this meeting. The cost will be determined based on the number of participants and you will need to write a check or pay cash (no change will be available so try to bring an assortment of bills).
Valentine's Day Minneapolis-based artist Ken Avidor talked about working on toned paper in a demo at Wet Paint in St. Paul. I was able to get some of it on tape.
Since I stupidly decided to avoid the highway rush hour traffic and go on River Road I got stuck in the exodus from the University! I arrived about 15 minutes late but then started right in taping at what I think you'll agree is a great moment to start!
Left: Roberta and Ken Avidor show off their new Brompton folding bikes in the concourse of the Union Depot in St. Paul, MN. Click on the image to view an enlargement.
From talking with friends afterwards I think what I mainly missed was a discussion of some of his tools and his admonition to "always draw from life," and his repeated encouragement to "draw every day."
In the video some things are mentioned and the following links and information will help you in your search for the whole "scoop."
People Mentioned in Ken's Talk:
Ken mentioned the Minnesota Journal Project 2000 in his talk. Linda Koutsky and Mark Odegard were the original coordinators who started the project and I (Roz Stendahl) was brought on in the fall of 1999 as a coordinator. I helped bind the 50 journals we used for the project and helped with the various activities and exhibits. This project ran through 2000, with exhibits in 2001. Fifty Minnesota artists, writers, songwriters, actors, directors, graphic designers, and other creative individuals kept journals for the year 2000 and those journals became part of the permanent collection of the Minnesota Historical Society. (In 2010 the group held a reunion at the History Center and an additional journal containing work from most of the participants was added to the collection.)
Both Ken and Roberta were artists already known to Linda and Mark (who had hired Ken when they both worked at the Science Museum). I first met Ken and Roberta when we had our first meetings for this project. In a studio visit with them I grumbled about the bond paper Ken was using for his sketches and I have been nagging him ever since to use better paper and materials because his art blew me away when I first saw it and it still does today. I'm pleased to say that I have made several appearances in Ken's journals over the years, thanks to my bossiness which he captures perfectly!
Sketchbooks and Paper:
For quite a long time Ken used Cachet's Earthbound journals for his daily journal. He liked the toned paper they contained. However the bindings were always pretty battered by the end of the year. He has since switched over to Strathmore's Toned Paper Journal line and is loving the slightly darker tone of tan paper (and also works on the line's gray paper). He finds the binding superior and recommends them. (You can read about the Strathmore journal line here. Ken only uses the toned paper journals in this line, and he only works in dry media. The post contains images from my toned paper journal experiments in this line.)
In the video Ken passed around some drawings on loose sheets. He was working on Magnani's Annigoni Designo (which is a wet-media ready paper that I routinely make into books, but which is also available in pads) and Stonehenge Kraft, available in sheets and pads.
Tools:
Ken now uses China markers (white) after talking with Don Colley, who visited the Cities last fall. (Don is coming back to the Cities in May 2013 so when I have details of any demos he might be doing I'll let you know.) (Note: Wet Paint sells white China markers, as well as other colors as I have a bunch, but I couldn't find a link on their site so I've given you the Amazon link so you can see what they look like).
Stabilo Tone watersoluble wax crayon in wood, which Ken calls a Stabilo in the video, is actually now only available as a Stabilo Woody. (This is my favorite watersoluble crayon, which if you've been reading the blog I've lamented long about. Use Stabilo Tone in the search engine and find a ton of posts on it. If you go to the link I've provided and scroll down to a "pens and crayons photo" you'll see both a white Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's Big Brush Pen [A] and Stabilo Tone/Woody [E] so you'll know what to look for. Wet Paint has both.)
White Prismacolor Pencils. (The regular colored pencils, not the Verithins.)
Pastel Pencils and pastels.
Lyra large colored pencils.
Ken used to use the Rotring Sketch pen but it is now his fall back pen. Currently he uses a Noodler's Flexnib—but would actually prefer a non-flexible nib. He uses the Noodler's pen because it looks more like a fountain pen and people don't realize he's sketching. He uses Noodler's ink, sometimes Platinum Carbon Black ink (though he has trouble with this ink in some pens), and various fountain pen inks (since he's using dry media for coloring he doesn't have to have a waterproof ink). He still carries the Rotring because it has a converter and if he runs out of ink with the Noodler's pen he has a back up. He will also use the Preppy Pen (which you can read about on my blog here, and you can read another more recent review of the Preppy here where I talk about the news that you can get converters for them!).
Sketch Outs and Sketch Out Groups:
Ken mentioned the following groups and events—
Urban Sketchers an international sketch group started by Gabi Campanario.
Urban Sketchers—Twin Cities (which is the local authorized sub-group of the Urban Sketchers organization and you can read there how to become part of it if you're a Twin Cities sketcher.)
MCBA Visual Journaling Collective is a group for journaling artists of all types (we have some writers as well as visual journal keepers) which I run with Suzanne Hughes at Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
MetroSketchers—a local sketching group started by LIz Carlson and run by her and Tim Jennen. They meet the first Sunday of the month at different locations. You can find them on Facebook (no website at this time). You can contact Liz for additional info at MetroSketchers@yahoo.com.
Each year I run the Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out during the run of the Fair. This is the link to the Fourth Annual Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out from 2012. The 2013 Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out will likely be on the Tuesday during the run of the Fair but details have not be finalized yet. Please check back, and use the blog's search engine to read about helpful hints for sketching at the Minnesota State Fair. Sketchers of all levels are welcome. (Yes there will be buttons!)
Ken and Roberta Avidor are two of the featured artists in Danny Gregory's new book "An Illustrated Journey." You'll want to check this out at Danny's blog. He's doing interviews via Skype with the artists and those are great fun to see.
You can reach Ken Avidor at the following email address: ken(dot)Avidor(at)gmail.com
Wet Paint Artists' Materials and Framing—An Independent Art Supply Store:
Wet Paint is Ken's (and Roberta's, and my, and just about everyone else's) favorite art supply store. I know Ken would like to thank them for the opportunity to spread the word about sketching and using toned paper. I'd like to thank Wet Paint for creating a community for artists by their regular demonstrations and "try-out" evenings. You can read more about Wet Paint here. No matter where you are in your journey as an artist Wet Paint staff members are there to help you get the tools and materials which will give you great results.
Ken Avidor will be at Wet Paint in St. Paul on Thursday February 14, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. for a toned paper presentation. (You can go to the Wet Paint page here and scroll down to find full details of the evening.) If you've been reading this blog at all you'll already know a lot about Ken because I post about him frequently and thanks to him I'm always sketching snow piles. He's an illustrator and cartoonist and a very politically involved citizen. It is always great fun to watch him sketch and hear him tell his harrowing stories of sketching in public. (You can see more sketches by Ken Avidor at UrbanSketchers—Twin Cities, and at The Art of Ken Avidor you can find your way to his many other blogs.)
Ken will be joined by another local artist Tara Tieso who also works on toned paper. You can read about her work at the Wet Paint listing.
Go and hear what they have to say about working on toned papers. There are lots of options for these papers in the marketplace right now.
Starting in December I began to reorganize my "library." While that process included culling books to create more shelf space (and resulted in donations to various small libraries) it also involved going over my notes of books I've read over the years.
Some of my upcoming posts will be about books focusing on a single artist, other "reading list" posts will be focus on techniques. I hope to put links to all of them on a page (which gets listed in the left-hand column of this blog), but we'll see how it goes. You could always get back to this post by searching "Portrait Painting," in the blog's search engine.
Some of those books may be on this list today, but others aren't because they seem to me to be better suited to appearing on a list of "Figure Drawing" books I'm also working on. Or perhaps for whatever reason I didn't think them as essential. Or I couldn't find them again or never owned them so they didn't show up in the library reorganization. I thought you'd appreciate a link to the original post so that you didn't have to wait for my list of figure painting books.
I have also listed videos and DVDs I've watched on this topic. Some libraries also carry them. Today there are so many YouTube videos documenting various drawing techniques that one could just surf through them, but I would have to say that watching the videos of artists whose work I've followed and whose books I've read has been very inspirational to me. I recommend that you focus your search for videos in a similar fashion. Often you can find short previews of an instructional video on YouTube and get a sense from it whether or not the teacher's approach appeals to you. I recently borrowed the Mary Whyte videos listed below and I could listen to her talk all day long.
For folks who attended my free gouache demo tonight at Wet Paint and for anyone interested in finding a selection of posts about gouache—a place to start, since I write about it so much—I have created a page on this blog called, "Gouache Compendium."
You will find the pages in a list in the left-hand column of the blog. The pages are listed alphabetically. You can also click on the title in the previous paragraph.
This was my way to consolidate information about the colors of Schmincke paint that I use, the brushes, and some of the most frequently asked about tips I give to people—in case I didn't remember to discuss them or in case I did remember to discuss them and people wanted to find the information again.
I want to thank Wet Paint for turning me loose on the unsuspecting painting public. I do want everyone to try gouache and they've been helpful in letting me spread the word.
And thank you also to all the people who came tonight and stood so patiently while I rattled on about my favorite medium. I appreciate your interest and patience. I hope that you got a sense of how versatile gouache is and that you will give it a go.
Above: Yes, a rotten eggplant. Readers of this blog will remember earlier gouache paintings of this specimen on healthier days. (See the end of this post for links to earlier paintings). Pentel Pocket Brush Pen sketch (lines pretty much covered with paint) and Schmincke gouache in a journal I made with Guttenberg paper. (6 x 8 inches approx.; 12 inch wide spread.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.
Monday, November 26, 2012, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. I will be giving a free gouache demo at Wet Paint in St. Paul.
Not sure what all the noise I'm making about gouache is about? Want to see someone use gouache in a variety of ways so you know what you're getting into? Have some questions about paper and brushes to use with gouache? Just like to see Roz make a fool of herself in public trying to talk and paint at the same time?
If any or all of those things are true then I hope you'll come to my free gouache painting demo at Wet Paint.
I'll begin at 5:30 p.m. with some exercises and thoughts on blending. I'll move into still-life demos that will deal with paint application from light to heavier applications—I'm working with Schmincke Gouache and its versatility and quality enables it to be used more transparently as well as opaquely.
By the end of the evening I'll also demonstrate working on prepainted backgrounds.
I don't know that I'll get any paintings done (that talking and painting at the same time is always an interesting juggle), but you'll see a bunch of techniques progress throughout the evening. Just in case I don't finish I'll have some completed paintings on hand so that you can see where I'm headed.
I think Schmincke Gouache is the most exciting and versatile medium available today: easy to use, easy to clean up, portable, no chemical odors, and just plain fun. Since there are a few limited edition sets remaining it's also a great time to get an incredible deal and see whether or not this paint is for you.
Schmincke Gouache is great for visual journaling, field sketching, and fine art applications. Come and see a little bit of everything.
Want to see the earlier versions of that eggplant?
All were painted with Schmincke Gouache. Papers used varied—I'll talk about papers and other supports at my demo.
If you would like to see additional examples of how I use gouache in my visual journal you can go to the category list in the left column of this blog and click on "Gouache." A whole bunch of examples will come up. That's not all of them, but I think that will do for now.
Today I'm excited to share a guest post with you. Amber Sausen atttended the September 22, 2012 Wash-Off at Bloomington Theatre and Art Center. She sent me an email introducing herself and providing links to sketches she did at the event. I loved her sketches and I asked her to write about the event. Below is Amber's account. Please use the provided link to visit Amber Sausen's Flickr account and see more of her sketches and art. Thank you Amber!
The National Watercolor Society Traveling Exhibition just wrapped up its stop at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC). In conjunction with the exhibit, The BTAC Watercolor Festival hosted a Wash-Off.
[Record scratch. Huh???]
A what? A Wash-Off.
What’s a Wash-Off? It’s an Iron Chef-style competition where three artists get one hour to paint the same still life. In Iron Chef the cameras zoom around the kitchen watching the chefs cook-off to create a meal incorporating a secret ingredient. It’s intense and appears to be barely-controlled chaos. The watercolor wash-off had less frantic action, but was no less entertaining.
The theater was a great setting for the event with cameras capturing the action and projecting it onto the large screen for the audience to see. So what if the projection was in black in white; it was a good test to verify that everyone’s color vision was still in working order!
The artists’ approaches varied greatly and their intensity was exciting to witness. Pat Undis kept layering on the glazes while managing to answer many audience questions at the same time. Dan Wiemer was the first to dig in with a big, fat brush for a quick value study before tackling the real deal with drippy abandon. Jim Turner managed enough witticisms to engage the audience while keeping a cool focus.
Emcee Roz Stendahl channeled Alton Brown, the host of Iron Chef America, with her extensive knowledge of the history and materials of watercolor. No one could have walked out of the event without having learned something new or having been inspired by the artists to try a new technique.
My sketches of the event tackled the full theatre and the black and white video projection (no irony intended in my grayscale sketch, really!) and the energy of the artists through use of a crazy pencil, inspired by Nina Johansson.
I don’t even know which artist won the Wash-Off. But I suppose the winners were really all of us who were able to come together for such a fun and informative event.
[Editor's Note: Over 200 people attended this exciting event. There was a problem with the digital projector so the overhead view was in black and white—however the artists quickly and joyfully compensated by lifting their paintings up and turning them to the audience from time to time. Artist Jim Turner does not have a website. Dan Wiemer's painting was voted the fan favorite on the day. Three lucky audience members won the raffle and took home the framed paintings!]
Last night at the MCBA Visual Journal Collective meeting member Thomas Winterstein gave us the heads up that there were trailers of Jake Winkle's DVD on Youtube.
(Yesterday I wrote that I couldn't recommend his book except for the images, but suggested his advertised DVD, listed at the back of the book, might be worth a look because he can obviously paint.)
The short 2 minute video I found thanks to Thomas makes me totally excited and eager to see Winkle's full DVD. There's enthusiasm in his voice and his brushstrokes are fun to watch. Check out the video trailers.
Mark your calendar for Saturday, September 22, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
It's a Watercolor "Wash-Off" at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center's Schneider Theatre.
Think "Iron Chef" for painters!
I will be emcee for the event. (That's right I get to be Alton Brown for painters—you know I'm grinning from ear to ear!)
Watch as watercolorists Pat Undis, Jim Turner, and Dan Weimer vie to create the most successful painting of the same subject in front of a live audience!
Not only will you see great artists working, you'll learn fun and interesting facts as I provide color commentary about all things watercolor (brushes, paper, paints…).
Audience members will select the winner, and all three paintings will be raffled off at the end of the event.
