I did a lot of other things first

I did a lot of other things before I finally settled into a regular studio practice. I’ve been a picture-maker since childhood, and I went to undergraduate and graduate school for painting, but for many years, I found myself doing a lot of other things beside painting and drawing. After teaching studio arts and art history for ten years at a small college near Boston, I left in 2011 to join my husband on our 82 acre hobby farm. We raised sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, and turkeys. We also had horses, rabbits, a dog and a cat, and we grew and canned vegetables. During the seven years we ran the farm I learned to spin and dye wool with natural dyes and became a pretty good knitter. As you might imagine, there wasn’t a lot of time left to make pictures. I did make a few, some of which are included on this website, but during those years I focused primarily on fiber arts as well as growing and preserving food.

Farming was a dream I had since childhood, and I loved that life. However, farming gets more difficult the older you get, and one morning my husband, who is older than I, woke up and said he was ready to stop. We traveled and lived in Florida for a year before selling our home in Vermont and moving to Maine a little over two years ago. Since then, I have recommitted to my studio practice. It helps that I have a great space in which to work, and as I mentioned in my last post, I have also been very happy with the arts community in our area. I have met several talented artists and am starting to show my work again for the first time in several years.

This is another quick figure drawing. We tend to alternate weeks of long and short poses. This fifteen-minute pose was the last of the night, and i liked it the best.

Life Drawing

I am lucky to belong to a life drawing group, near my home. The other members are quite talented, and I am constantly inspired working with them. We meet once a week and vary our pose lengths. Some members prefer to concentrate on short poses where they can focus on capturing the gesture. Others (like me) like long poses that we can develop into more finished drawings. I did the pose below last week. It was a short pose week. The barn where we work was hot, and our excellent model was exhausted. She fell asleep for the last pose, and it turned out to be my favorite drawing of the night.

I have been working with NuPastels on a Bee Paper Bogus Recycled Rough Sketch Pad—18” x 24”. This paper is quite rough, so I have to use hard pastels on it. I think Conte Crayon would work well, too. It’s tough paper, and I love the color. The price is pretty good, too, for a 50-sheet pad, 18” x 24” pad ($25.95 at Blick).

More from my sketchbooks

Here are some more of my sketch book paintings. I use Stillman & Birn Delta Series, 5.5” X 3.5” sketchbooks. I like these because the paper is heavy enough to take heavy, wet media, and they fit in my small backpack purse. I also use a 12-pan Windsor and Newton travel watercolor set and water brushes. I carry these whenever I travel, and often when I go out. Here’s a tip: Did you know you don’t have to buy refill pans for the WN travel sets? All you need do is buy tubes of watercolor and refill the pans on your own. It saves money because you get a lot more paint for the money. Please excuse how poorly framed these photos are. I took them quickly so I could put them up.

Images and ideas from my sketchbook

I draw and paint whatever I want in my sketchbook, but I also use it to make notes about my thoughts. The following images are from blogposts I made on my previous website. Unfortunately, the accompanying posts will not be here, but I will make new posts in the future.