Experimental Sketchbook Class: Time & Space to Create

Some of my work during the weeklong class.

It was perhaps the best art class I've ever taken at University. 

We were encouraged to experiment.

Push out of our comfortable ways.

I started getting scribbly & messy (not shown here)

so it was a relief to do some minimalist drawings.

Zoom grids became an integral part of my experience.

I wandered out of my familiar box.

I cut up one of my watercolor "still life" grids

and pasted fragments into a booklet.

And then, relief, back to the familiar~ 

except with a bit of a grid.

A grid containing The Tiny Fears of Rita

Les miniscules craintes de Rita

We tried a wax resist/ink wash/charcoal layering technique

that Maine artist, David Lewis, uses.

(His drawings are very sophisticated & refined...) 

We collected shadows by tracing actual shadows.

Some of the students turned their results into imaginative

imagery, unrelated to the original subjects, and then 

turned them into handmade books.

I loved my Swedish Ivy design & didn't transform it,

except to put it into an accordion format.

Last class exercise: Do 20 versions of the same object, 

using various papers & drawing materials.

I got 3 done in our half hour allotment...

But THIS is the idea which I most want to continue

at the moment...20 objects? 50? 100? 

Maybe they would be painted and drawn, then,

hand sewn together into a paper quilt that folds 

into a book. We shall see...

The beautiful thing is that I have SO many wonderful

inspirations & directions with which to continue.

Thanks to my instructors & to the class, composed of

young undergraduates, graduate students,

& some oldsters like me. 

So much inspiration,

& this is only the tip of the iceberg...

Lists and Collections

 I recently wanted to buy a new handbag. 

There were so many styles that

I made notes. It was helpful, if not obsessive.

(Here, only a snippet of several pages.)

 This wasn't the 1st time. Some years ago, I had drawn a 

bunch of bags, & eventually cut some of them out

to save in one of my "repository", catch-all journals.

In 2011, at a city Farmer's Market, 

I devoted a page in my small sketch journal 

to various shoppers' bags. Fascinating variety!

An interesting book : Blackstock's Collections. 

He draws collections at a very intense & obsessive level.

Also interesting:

Lists, To-Do's: Illustrated Inventories

Collected Thoughts & Other Artists' Enumerations

A page from Lists, To-Do's...

Collecting quantities verses buying one of something 

has an economic tie-in in our consumer culture. 

Folks on YouTube show & tell us that they have not one,

 but a multitude of 

bags, notebooks, pens, shoes, etc. 

& they encourage us to buy more, more more.

(They are often given these things at no charge 

or at a  discount. Or, it is their profession.)

What does the average person do who can't afford 

or doesn't need too many of an item?

Me: I admit, sometimes I buy more than one...

But drawing is more affordable.

For a related post please click HERE to my post called

26 Mugs, 100 Monkeys. 

What would YOU choose to draw (or buy)

 if you had to have a collection of 100?