Roz Wound Up

Going with the Flow: More on Mixing Sketches with Collage

Above: yet another spread from my “weirdo” journal. I discuss this below. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

In an on-going attempt to show you what is going on in this journal, and give you a sense of the working method in the hopes that you will experiment and discover a working method that suits you, I thought the above image would provide a useful example. Here’s the breakdown of what happened, with a little bit of editorializing:

Sketching and Collage—just 'cause

Above: a page spread from my "weirdo journal" which I've been posting about the past few weeks. Read more about the sketching and collage below. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

If you viewed my short video of this journal when I was just starting it, you will have seen this page partially completed. Here's what happened in the building of this page:

Please Remember to Vote Today

While this isn't a presidential election year voting still matters. Please remember to vote today. Consider why you vote. (I discussed this last year.)

And because you took time to stop by even on a busy election day here's another image from my Weirdo Journal…

Above: Page spread from the "weirdo" journal I've been discussing lately. This spread was made in stages. The sketch of the man (Pentel Pocket Brush Pen on graph paper) was placed here first. Then I added strips of decorative paper I made for covering my journals (see top and sides—purple/rust/gold strips). A fortune from dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant was added over the man's lapel. I came home on another night, late from the colored pencil class I'm teaching. I set up one of my squash and fiddled around with my Faber-Castel Pitt Artist brush pens in purple, yellow, orange, and green—making a color thumbnail of the squash and deciding on how to crop it. I decided it should get stuck in my journal along with the 3 colored pencil thumbnails I did quickly in class to show the students how I moved from one thumbnail orientation to spotting an entire series of different squash tops I wanted to do. (Sadly when I placed wax paper on top of these and burnished them a lot of the pigment lifted off so you can't see them well except in person.) Finally I did some writing about the events of the day and started to get into a doodling mode, filling the space with purple outlining and vertical lines.

Journaling Superstitions #11: You Must Keep Your Watercolor Palette Clean

Above: a closeup of my Schmincke pan watercolor palette (these pans are factory filled with Schmincke paints). This is one of several watercolor and gouache palettes that I use at various times depending on the paints I want to use. I selected this palette for the today because I think it clearly shows how individual pans are getting “contaminated” from my brush while working, shows the spatter of colors in the channels between the pans, from quick working, and shows a fun mix of “turkey” brown (blue and orange) with individual pigments still visible. (The palette working space is something I typically clean off at the end of a working session.)

I’m not saying that everyone who has a pristine palette doesn’t use it, but in several decades of teaching I will tell you that every student who comes through one of my classes with a clean palette is more hung up on doing things “perfectly,” or not messing up his paints, or not contaminating his colors, than he is concerned with painting, with creating. It becomes something those students have to work through if they are actually going to spend more time painting than worrying about rules, or perfect palettes, or a myriad of non-painting things.

What My Blog Readers Are Reading

Above: two more faces and some more collaged text fun from my current journal. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen sketches with Holbein gouache (whatever happened to be out on the plate, hence the "odd" choices?) on Magnani Annigoni Designo paper in a book handbound by me. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

On July 12 I posted the winners of the 9-months of Daily Posting What Other Blogs Do You Read Contest.But the response was so good that I haven't been able to post all the suggestions that people sent in. It has been one of the "unfinished business" pieces I meant to address in the first few weeks of year two of the blog and if I don't get to it right now the lists are going to be buried even deeper in the growing pile of "give me attention" papers!

Ideas on how to organize these blog recommendations from my readers has really stumped me. There doesn't really seem, even after months of looking at it every so often, a clear way to do it even now. So in the interest of getting you something to look at over the weekend (should I decide not to post—it could happen—it will happen) I've gone for the straightforward "lumping" approach.

Entertain Yourself: Your Journal Shouldn't Be a Chore

Above: a recent journal spread from the "weirdo journal." This is just me playing with the brush pen and gouache, on a spread where white paper had previously been attached. I added the collaged text when I finished the sketch. (Text reads: She was an amusing companion in a hard, brittle way.) That dot of blue paint is just something that fell off the brush while I was painting the background—don't sweat it. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Seems to me people who start keeping visual journals sometimes get so caught up in "I should do this," "I should do that," that they forget the bottom line: the journal shouldn't be a chore. (Normally I try to avoid the word "should" which reinforces the idea of "chores" but hey, the journal really shouldn't be a chore!)

Entertain yourself when you work in your journal. This is your time to find out more about what makes you tick! Make a page that means something only to you. Make a page that's full of your favorite things—full of fun.

Your journal isn't for someone else—it's for YOU. Entertain yourself. (And remember, entertaining yourself is going to look different for each person too: someone might fill a journal full of practice sketches of some difficult to grasp object and while that might look like work to another person that "work" was entertaining to the artist.)

Your journal is going to look different from everyone else's because you're different. What entertains you isn't going to do it for someone else. What looks like a great composition or use of line or use of negative space or inclusion of a humorous line or whatever…isn't going to do it for someone else. (Self-explanatory isn't it?)

That's the joy!

MCBA Visual Journal Collective: Update on the October Meeting

Above: another look at what's going on in the weirdo journal. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen on Magnani Annigoni Designo paper with Stabilo Tone for color. (Go to the category list and click and scan through "Colored Pencils" to see additional posts on using Stabilo Tones and similar watersoluble crayon products.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Last Monday we held the October meeting of the MCBA Visual Journal Collective. Twenty three visual journal keepers showed up to exchange thoughts on various tools they use in their visual journals. I wanted to share the suggestions here because many people can't attend the meetings and while some art materials may be familiar to all of us it always surprises me how many times I whip out my Niji waterbrush and someone says, "Wow, I didn't know they made such a thing."

Clare talked about her favorite pens: Faber-Castel Pitt Artist's Brush Pens. She loves to use several different colors. Other members are also smitten with these pens and use them for sketching with watercolor. The pens are waterproof and you can wash over the lines almost immediately, with your watercolors. They are great for writing bold lettering as well. Now they come in larger sizes too (I mentioned this in an earlier post) which make an even bolder brush mark. So you might want to think about adding one or two of these (or several) to your drawing kit.

Ricë Freeman-Zachery Talks to Me About Finding Time for Making Art

Left: Cover shot of Ricë Freeman-Zachery's new book, Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Making Art.

I'm thrilled to let you all know that my work has been included in Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Making Art. Ricë Freeman-Zachery has interviewed 14 artists (various media) and asked us all about how we make time and space for our creative work in our lives. The answers brought out are informative, helpful, and instructive. You will pick up this book and find solutions you didn't even know you were looking for, all while you get to peek into the lives of 14 working artists.

You need to read this book! The artists included in the book are: Traci Bautista, Theo Ellsworth, Lisa Lichtenfels, Chris Malone, Thomas Mann, Teesha Moore, Judy Coates Perez, Kelly Rae Roberts, Pam Rubert, Lori Marsha Sandstedt, Carter Seibels, Susan Sorrell, Judy Wise, and me. (On Ricë's blog you can find links to the websites and blogs of these artists.)

While you wait for your copy to arrive in the mail, or before you head out to pick it up at the local bookshop, through the marvels of digital "stuff" you can actually listen to Ricë interviewing me about finding time for creative work.

It's exciting for me to have the opportunity to reach some more people through the book and the interview, and with luck, to get them to think about visual journaling, and taking ownership of their brains and their creativity. Ricë's book really does provide insight into the issues of finding time and space to make art. As I said above: read the book. 

Also, in honor of this new podcast I thought it was time to work out a way to put podcasts on my blog "page." If you look in the left column below the "categories list" and the "pages list" you'll find "Podcasts with Roz." If you ever want to hear my cartoon voice, or hear me go on and on about visual journaling and art media and such, head over to this list of links. You might want to revisit the podcasts I did with Danny Gregory in 2008. These podcasts will give you something to do on days when I don't post! (It's going to happen someday.)

The Weirdo Journal: A Closer Look

Left: The "Weirdo Journal" looking from the top down. It's 6.25 x 9.5 inches. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Over the past week or two I’ve mentioned the “weirdo journal” and promised to say more about it, but I’ve always been running short of time.

Yesterday I actually posted a video of the journal in its partially filled state.

Here’s why I think this is a “weirdo journal.” I made this journal in 2003 with paper I’d just learned about: Magnani Annigoni Designo. It’s a wonderful 100 percent cotton paper with wool flecks (well I guess it’s not 100 percent cotton, but you get the idea) and a lovely tan color. It is sized for wet media and there’s the delight. Gouache looks fabulous on this paper. Even transparent watercolor looks fantastic on this paper, except you have to allow for the paper color showing through and that involves some mental gymnastics…Colored pencil looks fabulous on this paper. The paper is thick (250gsm) so it is ideal for collage work. 

Nothing Is in Order in My Life, Why Should This Be Different?

This embedded video is a quick peek through the Weirdo Journal I'm working in right now. I was actually going to write about the journal and its many weirdo aspects before posting the video, but hey I seem to have slipped the chronological ties that normally govern me, so what the heck…

If the embedded video doesn't work you can view it on YouTube.