Sketchbook Pages 10 January 2011

 A selection of pages from my sketchbook over the last few weeks.

You can see earlier sketchbook pages here and here and here.

Sketchbook Pages 29 November 2010

Here are the latest pages from my sketchbook.  You can see previous pages here and here.

Sketchbook Pages 22 November 2010

A Studio in My Pocket

Well, not really in my pocket ...

We went camping a couple of weeks ago, I took some great photos, and I took along a tiny, portable studio. Enough stuff to paint or draw on the run.

I like my travelling 'studio' to be compact and organised, so I packed my equipment into a tiny lunch box.

Here you can see the lunch box, pens, watercolour pencils and my paint box. There are two paintbrushes in the paintbox. There is my sketchbook, and two beautiful leaves that I found. I love to paint leaves. Oh, and that is a mini water container, in the front.

Look how everything packs neatly into the little lunch box, and on the right, I have even  squashed in my wallet and cell phone - nifty!


I packed this little back full of stones and leaves to bring home. It would have been nice to have a few zip-lock bags.


I have been quite extravagant with this travelling studio, I have packed a large set of paints and 24 coloured pencils, but there are plenty of compact painting materials suitable for travelling (or to keep in your hand bag or glove compartment.)


Take a look at this great  video on the Pocket box by Guerilla Painter. I'd love to have one of those!

And here is  the Winsor and Newton Artists' Watercolour pocket plus traveller. Very swish!

I have a new sketchbook, a birthday present from good-painting-friend-Judy, and it is an unusual format. It does not fit into my lunch box, so I have bought a 'sketchbag' from a second-hand shop to hold all my supplies. I have done a drawing of it in my new sketchbook:

I can now grab my sketchbag and run - oh - better remember to put in some zip-lock bags!

Do you have a studio in your pocket?

Sketchbook Pages 15 November 2010

I started a new sketchbook this week end, with the intention to use it often and post the pages here for you to see. It's part of my new philosophy - to make what art I can - during this busy stage of my family life.

I love sketchbooks (and notebooks and journals!) I could look at them all day! 

If you want to look all day, Here is a link to some images of sketchbooks. If you want to look AND read all day (and a bit longer) this link will take you a great sketchbook guide. I love the internet!

Are you keeping a sketchbook??

An Old Sketchbook

An oldie, but a goodie! (A5 size)

Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings - Day 3

This is the third day in the series on ideas, scratching around in our lives to find those sparks that get us working.
 
On Day 1, we considered our own art work and our sketchbooks in particular, as a possible source of ideas.
On Day 2, we looked at how the work of other artists can help us generate ideas for our own work.

Each of us has a unique approach to finding ideas and turning those ideas into paintings, drawings, sculptures or other creative works. There is no magic formula, ideas come from everywhere. As creative people, we need to be ready to jot down any new idea that comes to us by having a notebook or sketchbook on hand. 

Be intuitive – when something feels right – when it feels like a good idea – it probably is. Make a note, take a photo, do a quick thumbnail - don't let it go.

Ideas come from the world around us

There are as many ideas as there are things to look at. Artists are inspired by things that they see in the world around them.

Nature: landscapes, plants, stones, bones, seeds, shells, seascapes.
Countless artists look to nature for ideas like Constable, Turner, and Monet.

People: faces, groups, relationships, old people, children. Chuck Close, Lucien Freud, Ron Meurck, Carravagio,  Rubens, Adolphe-William Bouguereau, Henry Moore all have people as their subject matter.

Animals: ideas for paintings can come from wild animals, pets, farm animals, insects, fish, etc.
The Lascaux Cave paintings, Rosa Bonheur and George Stubbs are examples.

Objects: still life groupings, fruit, food, bottles, cups, cakes, flowers. Wayne Thiebaud, Cezanne, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Audrey Flack, are artists who have grouped objects to paint.

Man-made objects: buildings, interiors, mechanical objects, gadgets, clothes, jewellery, cars and vehicles Richard Estes, Claes Oldenburg, are examples.

Ideas come from our interior world


Our thoughts, feelings and emotions, intellectual ideas, imagination and sometimes moods are a rich source of ideas and subject matter.

Artist who look inside of themselves for ideas, include Heironymus Bosch, Paul Klee, the Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, Surrealists like Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, (who described his paintings as “hand painted dream photographs”), William Blake, Arthur Boyd, Wassily Kandinsky, to name just a few.

Ideas are everywhere - cultivate an open mind alert to the possibility of ideas in all environments and situations. 

4 Foolproof ways to capture that idea

1. Make a note.  Write down everything that comes to you as you think of it.  Be as detailed as the situation allows.  If you are too brief or cryptic, it may not jog your memory as you hoped when you come back to it in a few days.  Make your note legible!

2. Take a photo.  Take photos of the things that excite you visually when you are out and about. The photos may not become paintings, but they may give you ideas for backgrounds, moods, colours or compositions.

3. Do a quick thumbnail sketch. A tiny sketch should be sufficient, but if you are worried about details, take notes too.

4. Collect things. Postcards, pictures, clippings, ticket stubs, coins, stones, feathers, shells, bottle tops, cash slips, coasters, etc, can all become ideas for work or can be incorporated into the work.  They are also great reminders of mood, conversations and places.

“Ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with passionate devotion."

Max Weber

Find Great Ideas For Your Paintings - Day 1

This is the first in a series where I show you how to find those great ideas that will have you running to your easel!

I have been talking about how important it is for an artist to keep sketchbooks, notebooks, diaries and journals as part of the creative process.  I have described how to keep a Trash Can Journal, and its function, and also how and why to start an Picture Notebook. (Click on these links if you have not read these posts.)  In the previous entry, I listed 30 reasons why I carry a sketchbook with me and one of the reasons is that I get plenty of new ideas from looking through my old sketchbooks.

Where are your old sketchbooks?  Are they on a dusty shelf in your studio? In a shoe box under your bed?  Are they still packed in boxes since your last move?

Get out your old sketchbooks! They are a treasure trove of good ideas!

Go...find them...fetch them...Now!

Open them, look at them, carefully turn the pages and admire them.  Did you really have all of these ideas?  Clever thing!

Here are some pages from a 1997 sketchbook of mine (I had to ferret it out of a sealed box...)

My old sketchbooks, especially those that I may have forgotten, are full of ideas and images that I can use for new paintings.  Because I haven't seen them in a while, the content is fresh, and exciting.  And because I know that I did it all myself, I don't feel intimidated as I sometimes do when looking for ideas in other artists' work.

Some ideas in my old sketchbooks will spark new trains of thought that may have little to do with what is on the page, and others I may end up using almost unchanged.

There are a lot of things in a sketchbook that I might never use again.  But looking through them inspires me.

I never know what it is that might spark a fresh and exciting concept for a new painting or drawing, sometimes it's a colour, sometimes a technique, and sometimes it's just the act of looking at my own stored away ideas.  

A sketchbook is a place to put our ideas, if we keep our sketchbooks diligently (even sporadic is better than not at all), if we store our sketchbooks carefully, and if we remember to dust them off and go through them, we should never be short of ready to use, unique and personal content to spice up our paintings.

Click here for: Find great ideas for your paintings Day 2