August Updates
What three years of near-daily practice looks like and another fall event added to my calendar!
On Progress and Making Art for the Long Haul
If you’ve been following my Instagram feed, you know I have been having a delightfully art-filled summer with lots of plein air painting and urban sketching. And while I’ve shared quite a few of my paintings, I haven’t shared them all for the simple reason that, to make a few good ones, I have to make a bunch of bad ones, too. That’s just part of the process.
Still, sometimes it is easy to forget. When I’ve had a few days in a row when all I make is a mushy mess on the page, I naturally feel quite frustrated. I start to wonder if I’m making any progress at all or if I’m going backwards. Because let’s face it, even when you have a positive, growth-mindset, no one likes to fail.
In early July, I was feeling some of that familiar frustration, but I’m happy to report it didn’t last long. How did I get past it? I looked back at my sketchbooks for concrete proof that I have indeed made progress. What I saw looking back wasn’t so much that I used to make “bad” sketches and now I make better ones. Actually, my progress is largely in the form of specific challenges I’ve been having in recent paintings.
Basically, as I’ve learned and grown as artist, I have started taking on more complex subject matters and compositions, and therefore I have new problems. Things that used to be hard like drawing in perspective and basic watercolor techniques like layering and managing the water in my mixes feel more natural now, and because of that, I am more confident in taking on landscapes scenes with water features (so scary!) or lots of complex, overlapping shapes. I know I have grown not because everything goes so smoothly in my paintings now, but because I am facing new, more advanced issues.
I guess that could be depressing, like, “Isn’t this supposed to get easier? Why does it still feel hard?” But actually I think problem solving is an exciting part of a creative practice and something that keeps me energized and engaged.
Another thing I realized looking back: I haven’t been doing this very long. While I would say I’m definitely not a beginner any more, I’m not exactly a veteran. I began making art again only four years ago during COVID lockdowns, picking up a creative habit I had abandoned after high school more than twenty years earlier. I hadn’t painted anything other than the walls of my house in over two decades at that point, so basically I was starting all over again from scratch. I bought my first cheap set of watercolors just three years ago! And it’s only been two years since I first ventured outside to do plein air work and attended my first urban sketching meet-up.
Often at my plein air group meet-ups, I am in the presence of painters who have been at this for decades, many of whom attended art school and are full-time artists! And then there’s little old me, a self-taught watercolor artist with barely three years’ experience with the medium. No wonder I feel frustrated if I compare myself to them!
But if I compare myself today with myself one or two years ago, I can see that I have been sprinting up the slope of a steep learning curve. That’s the power of near-daily practice! Now, as I pause to consider how far I’ve come, I also have to remind myself that art is not a sprint. If I need a metaphor, it’s a marathon. I’m in it for the long haul. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, so there’s no hurry, and really, there’s no destination. The process is the destination, and instead of giving in to frustration when something goes awry, I can just turn the page and keep going.
Three Sketches of Bancroft Tower
This series of images shows three sketches of I’ve completed at Bancroft Tower, a monument/folly near my home in Worcester and illustrates what I mean about seeing growth over time and tackling new challenges. I think I shall have to make it an annual tradition to paint Bancroft Tower each year and let this series continue to develop!
2022
The first sketch was completed in August 2022. It was my very first urban sketch, made shortly after I learned about the urban sketching movement.
As soon as I heard about urban sketching, I knew it was something I wanted to do. As I’ve written about before, urban sketching is basically plein air work without the somewhat stuffy, elitist-artsy connotations of plein air. You can think of it like those old school analogies that were part of the SATs back in the day:
Genre fiction : literary fiction :: urban sketching : plein air
Anyway, there is no urban sketching group here in Worcester, so I went out alone with my supplies and my little folding stool and I spent a couple of hours trying to record what I saw. The results, while slightly cartoonish, made me pretty darn happy at the time, as I managed to capture the asymmetry of the building that I had honestly never noticed before even though I walk here often. I also was proud of the foreshortening of the archway, and the small detail of the bars in the windows. I knew the perspective wasn’t dramatic enough, among other problems, but I also knew that it was recognizably Bancroft Tower and that was enough for me.
2023
The second image was completed in July 2023, shortly after I returned from my sketch-filled trip to the UK. In my travels, I sketched from life daily, and when I came home and got back to real life where I wasn’t able to get out and paint every day, I was a bit glum. So one morning I grabbed my kit and headed to Bancroft Tower once again. This time I made a very large 2-page spread in my A4 sketchbook, which makes this one almost 24 inches across and 8.3 inches in height. My main goals were to create a sense of depth and to give the trees some dimensionality, and again, I was happy with it, even though it was still a bit cartoonish and the middle ground foliage was sort of confusing.
2024
The third image is this year’s effort, one that fits my personal goal for my third year of watercolor, which is to be more expressive. Notice that my two previous efforts were line-and-wash sketches with a clear ink drawing that I painted in. To get away from that sort of cartoonish sketch and to avoid a sort of coloring book situation where I tightly fill in lines, I’ve been experimenting with some stay-loose techniques.
If you zoom in on the third image, you’ll see some pencil lines running through the sky area making abstract shapes. Those are the initial blind contours I made to warm up for the sketch. I make at least three overlapping blind contours at the start of a sketching session to warm up, to connect my eye and hand, and to study the shapes of my subject carefully. In the past, I made blind contours of scrap paper, but lately I’ve been doing them right in my “good” sketchbook, and then I get out of my paints and I go straight in without make a “real” drawing. I paint over the blind contour lines, ignoring them completely, setting out the big shapes and shadow areas directly with paint. This method forces me to simplify the scene and keeps me from overworking the sketch.
In this most recent sketch of Bancroft Tower, I am particularly proud of the hint of sky in the windows above the archway and the sense of light hitting the far side of the archway.
I used this same method for my sketch of Big Ben on my trip to London, my sketch of the Plymouth Rock pavilion from a day trip to Plymouth, MA, and a recent sketch of a local farm I visited with my plein air group on a day when it was too hot for a long painting session.
I have found this method to be a great way to get past anxiety about “ruining” a page in my sketchbook. The contour drawings calm my nerves and ground me, and then, with all those weird lines all over the page, it’s already ruined, so I can paint with reckless abandon. As a Buddhist might say, The glass is already broken, go ahead and use it.
Fall Events - Save the Date!
I’m excited to share that I’ve added a second NaNoWriMo writing workshop series to my calendar of fall events. In addition to running a three-part series in Natick, MA, I will also be holding sessions at the Groton Public Library. Check out my website for full event details and dates. Mark your calendar and stay tuned for links to sign up to participate.
NaNoWriMo Writing Workshop Series
Workshop 1: Planning and Preparing
Morse Institute Library, Natick MA, October 3, 2024, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Groton Public Library, Groton, MA, October 23, 2024, 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Workshop 2: Writing Sprint
Morse Institute Library, Natick MA, November 7, 2024, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Groton Public Library, Groton, MA, November 13, 2024, 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Workshop 3: Revision Strategies and Beyond
Morse Institute Library, Natick MA, December 3, 2024, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Groton Public Library, Groton, MA, December 18, 2024, 6:00 - 7:30 PM