The sketchbook project will depart for Brooklyn soon!

I finished my sketchbook for the Sketchbook project today. You can see the whole thing here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FO_Bky9lU5IWPByQaennYgIW6pDsTjIb/view?usp=sharing Eventually it will be scanned and posted to the sketchbook project archive and if it arrives in time, it will travel too. https://www.sketchbookproject.com

It's always brilliant to work on something with lots of smaller parts over a sustained period of time and when it's compete it feels much greater than the parts.  This sketchbook is full of quick direct drawing about the objects I collect and arrangements that allow me to make colour studies.

I made the final two drawings this morning and then bound the pages, cleaned them up and will post it on Monday. Here are a few of the drawings that have kernals of ideas which I have either already responded to again or hope to later. 

While it rages outside, I create my own little worlds indoors

African Palette, pastel on prepared mount board 23x22

Today it rained and gales raged, rattling the windows of the studio. I barely noticed as I was immersed in my African Palette, finding the depth of the colour.  It was another one of those drawings that didn't paint itself. I could match the colour but every piece needed layers to get the excitement that the colour had in REAL life. 

On Tuesdays I often call in at the Mind charity shop in Hadleigh after pilates. I often buy something.  In this still life, objects from that charity shop are: the purple tablecloth that is the bottom rectangle and the jug above the orange. It took me at least three weeks to succumb to the jug, though. I planted the primroses in another jug from the Woolpit car boot.  

sketchbook project page - African Palette

I often set up my still life the night before.  That way I can sketch it quickly first and then sleep on it. 

House of Cacti, egg tempera on panel

This is the third of that bright object egg tempera series.  It is a smaller panel and the objects were arranged in a very convoluted way.  In the back is one of my old faves - a Cacti I drew years ago after visiting the Botanic gardens in NYC with my dad. The cacti soldiers marching East are from Woolpit but they are IKEA, apparently. Can you find the real cactus?

sketchbook project page - Mexican Table

 

Andrew, charcoal on paper, A4, RA live life drawing

And last night I tried something new… I projected the RA  live life drawing on the studio wall and had a life drawing session.

Risk Taking and Quick Sketches

Some people freeze at a blank page.  That doesn't happen to me but I do work more intuitively and feel liberated to move things around, change colour and make compositions in a different way when I work (quickly) in a sketchbook.  At 58, even knowing that I sending a book somewhere to potentially have an audience doesn't make me too tight.  I look forward to the time each day when I will draw without intending to do anything beyond draw. Obviously I am scanning the drawings - there will be 32 in the end that I'll send in the sketchbook to the Sketchbok project https://www.sketchbookproject.com. I'm not sure if I will ever use the drawings I'm making for anything else but I believe that just recording all these arrangements is making it easier for me to use those intuitive muscles in the future!

How the tiger got into the drawing.

Placid Stalking, pastel on prepared mount board, 30x33

When my day is uncomplicated it begins with an hour or more of drawing in my sketchbooks. As I draw I explore, I revise and dream about the future. I try to keep THOUGHTS out of my head but that's pretty tough.  On a good day the planning for what's next comes after when I look at what I've done. Drawing in my sketchbooks can mean something finished, or it can be something open and about the next idea. That can be because I am impatient to get on, or it can be because I run out of time, or because I want to retain something unfinished for later. The drawings below are the pre-drawings for the drawing above. 

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I added the tiger and used it later in the bigger more finished drawing. Here I paid no attention to scale. Perhaps all of these ideas will translate into a painting?

News From England

News From England, pastel on opened altered book

We've had a little snow over the past few days and we live on a hill so it stuck around enough to whiten the ground.  Our dog, Lyra, loves the snow and charged ahead, rolling on her back and sniffing wildly. Early morning with a dusting of snow is certainly news and the milky pink light delights us all. 

And I'm still filling up my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project. The mug was a gift from my friend who accompanied me to the Bonnard exhibition!

The freedom of gifting your drawings

Deciding to make a sketchbook with a theme, in my opinion, creates a momentum of its own. Another thing I've found is that knowing that I am 'releasing' the drawings makes me freer and sometimes better. I discovered The Sketchbook Project https://www.sketchbookproject.com/ before Christmas and began putting my sketchbook together, due early March, over the weekend.  They say you can rebind your sketchbook with different paper so I began doing that.  After a hiccup I decided I needed four signatures for the pages to sit right and prepared them for pastel with gouache and ground. There are 32 pages so I need to make at least one drawing a day.

If you don't know about the Sketchbook project, you pay, they send you a sketchbook, you draw like mad and send your sketchbook back to them, in Brooklyn, and you never see it again unless you visit the Sketchbook project, or find it digitally online. Good thing I have no problems with letting go.