Laurelines

Getting back to 'Yay'

I've been drawing all my life, from at least aged three, that is. From my twenties on, I've sketched while traveling, just for the delight and curiosity of it.

Lately, though I've continued with travel sketching, I've fallen off the daily sketching habit, I realize this has to do with all that sketching I've shared here and on Urban Sketchers and other web sites over the past twelve years.

Sketching on location began to feel like a performance, an obligation that grew onerous. The spark that this sort of drawing held for me dimmed the more I felt it a duty and not an inner-generated (even if outwardly shared) activity, the way it had been all my life

This weekend I had to fly to Michigan to attend a memorial service for a dear friend. I wasn't sure if I'd feel like sketching or if I'd have any time to, but I packed some crayons and a brush pen just in case. Out walking in the early morning, I came upon a garden scene in reds and greens and lights and darks. I thought, 'I want to draw that!'  I broke out the few crayons I'd packed and my brush pen and I set to.

After a few minutes I ran out of time and had to wrap it up.

There was my sketch.  'Yay," I thought, yay!' 

'Yay' is child speak and it perfectly expresses that spontaneous delight I'd been missing. I agree with psychologists who say that we carry our child heart inside us all our lives and that is where our creativity lies.  

This quick and modest sketch of a slice of a summer garden seems to me a kind of breaking of a spell. I have lots of other work going, work that I (mostly) enjoy, illustrations and a much-procrastinated-upon painting series, but this is different. This was made by the crayon-wielding child Laura who looked at something she thought was beautiful, took out her colors and said, 'Yay!'

  

 

I have four illustrations due in the next few days and then it will be time to think about my next trip to Wales. As of today, August 1st, I can say I'm leaving next month, even if the date of departure IS the end of September.

I still have so much to say about that trip and where it fits into my larger Places Project. After my deadlines, I'll be back to tell more.

Yay!

A pause for pencil

In a complicated world, experienced by a complicated mind (mine, to wit), it is well from time to time to simplify. What could be simpler than pencil on paper? And it's so much fun, the pencil. Here are colored pencils in action at the Audubon Gallery at the North Carolina Museum of Art. I usually find taxidermy distressing and depressing, but the birds at NCMA are lovely. Their spirit remains.

I commend to you, in addition to the Audubon Gallery at NCMA, the Iris restaurant where, along with bright and tasty food and polite fellow diners, you get to rub shoulders with one of Patrick Dougherty's sublime site-specific branch and twig wall sculptures. Pencil with a bit of added wash happened here.

Why do I like blue pencil so much? I have no idea, but there we are. At a workshop I went to last weekend, I blue penciled my fellow attendees. And on blue-lined paper, too. I sense a theme evolving here.

and

On the other hand, we have non-blue pencils and here is one very dandy example ... I used a multi-colored, swirled-together leaded pencil for a quick drawing I made of my daughter Kate on her birthday. Those multi-colored pencils are delightful... they're rainbows in pencil form.

And here's a nude guy from a figure drawing session I went to,  drawn on 18" x 24" paper. Brown pencil here, I don't remember which kind.

People and countries behave badly often, but pencils... they're low-key, they're steady, they're workhorses. On the cusp of July as we are, with its heat and its relative quiet (Northern Hemispherically speaking) and in the midst of global troubles, it's worthwhile to consider pausing with a pencil or two. That's what I'm doing.

Portland in March, some sketches

On a recent trip to Portland to see my daughter Cecelia and some friends, we had great luck with the weather... not one day of rain! The cherry trees were in full glory and the Portland Urban Sketchers and I met at the riverside to catch them in their prime:

Here are two of the afore-mentioned Portland Urban Sketchers, having at it!

I had MORE fun with my Koh-i-noor Magic Pencil (see it in my New York sketches here). It comes in several colorways and the ones I don't have are on their magic way to me even as we speak! There is something so beguiling about the way color(s) appear as you draw, as if by (wait for it...) magic! I have just begun to explore the possibilities of this unique drawing instrument!

One more drawing for today. I have several more to show, but don't want to clog up this post. I'll be back in a few days with the rest!

Happy 2013! It was!

 

Not to whine, for such is life... but simply to observe: 2013 was the first good year around here since 2007. Oh, there've been many good days, minutes, hours, some weeks, even, since 2007... but whole years? Not those. Neutral years, years in which nothing much bad happened? Not those, either.

2013 could have turned out differently. The stakes were high. And the big results weren't in until September. 

But what the first nine months were leading up to culminated in very happy news!

My daughter's adorable baby son Miles, born on September 13, and shown here on Christmas Day, at almost 3 1/2 months: 

 I am beyond besotted! Look at that tender, adorable face!

The painting show I started working on in early January, opened in late September to a very warm reception.  There were moments in March when I thought I wasn't going to make it. But I worked through the problems and ended up finding, as I had struggled to find, my own idiom. I made quirky paintings and they pleased me. The fact that others liked them was delicious.

I made illustrations, you will perhaps remember, for a wonderful new magazine about Raleigh, NC, called, appropriately enough Walter!

I got to do all sorts of things---maps, portraits, foodie things, even the cover of the first anniversary issue! And I had a double spread of garden imagery in June !

 

 

 

  

 

 My work appeared on other pages, too. In the June issue of Watercolor Artist Magazine and in Playing with Sketches (the fourth book my work is included in!) by Whitney Sherman, director of the graduate program in illustration at the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art. I'm so proud to be represented in both publications.

I made trips to Austin and to Portland, OR, to see my darling peripatetic daughter Cecelia. In Portland, I had a delightful sketching meetup with some Portland Urban Sketchers.

As you may know, I ended up my year with an exciting trip to northern Norway. More sketches from that trip to appear in a few days. My scanner is still hiccupping and the holidays are still intervening! 

I will also talk about my art goals for 2014. I've done this before ;D. See you in just a few days!

And happy New Year to all of you, wherever you are!

 

Portland sketches, November days

So, as planned,  in the same book with my Iceland and my Vancouver sketches went most of my recent Portland sketches. Atmospheric? Gray and wet...I call that atmosphere!

Had a fabulous time with my Portland Urban Sketcher friends. We went to see and draw the Samurai exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. Though it was indoors, it was plenty atmospheric. So much beautiful detail and drama to see in these artifacts of war and aggression.

I have other museum sketches to share, but for today I'll just add these non-museum ones, one at the airport, and another from the front porch of my bed and breakfast, the Lion and Rose. I'm glad I got some sketching practice in before my Norway adventure... I was a bit wonky in these two.

Live and learn. And learn and learn again. More to come!

J C Raulston Arboretum illustrations

I can finally show these since the June/July issue of Walter, the magazine of Raleigh, NC, has been published!

 

Here's the horse chestnut image, direct from my files, so you can get an idea of what the *original of these is like:

And there's SO much going on in my studio, all of which will be shared in time! 2013 has been such an important year for me and much of what is important has just... bam! .. appeared without a warning. It's a really good thing I didn't know all that was coming, because I might have, politely but unwisely, declined the upheaval. Upheaval is another word for growth, isn't it?

 

 

* I will also post the originals in my 2013 Gallery, at left.

The Wandering Sketcher... c'est moi!

I have never felt as much on the move in my life as I do now. Ironically, I won't be traveling as much this year (though I have a thrilling trip to northern Norway planned for this coming December, about which more later)... the journeys I refer to are interior, surprising, and profound.

Some of the products of my interior travels will be apparent before too long. At least, I hope so, since many of them are a response to my September art show deadline!

Back in the visible world, I  appear on the pages of a couple of magazines, with more such appearances to follow this year.

In the June 2013 issue of Watercolor Artist, I'm included in an article about urban sketching, written by noted artist and writer Cathy Johnson. It's called 'The Pulse of the City; Seven Artists from Around the Globe Share What it Means to Record Life ... .'  Cathy (or Kate, as her artist friends call her) has written 34 books and zillions of articles. She's a national treasure. I'm honored to be one of the seven artists she writes about:

 

I am also a contributing illustrator to a magazine called Walter; Raleigh's Life and Soul, as you may remember from  a recent post here.

Because of my painting obligations, I have not been able to accept all assignments, but a recent one was lots of fun...once I stopped being terrified at the idea of producing a map! Luckily, the map in question was small and could be done in my sketchy, quirky style! I can't wait to do more maps! If ever a subject were tailor-made for me, the wandering artist, this is it.

 

My next assignment for Walter is tailor-made for me in a different way. I'm to make sketchy illustrations of the J C Ralston Arboretum in Raleigh for the magazine's June issue. The Ralston Arboretum is renowned in the horticultural and gardening worlds. I look forward to sitting in those gardens and responding to them in my own way.

Buy a Laurelines sketch to help Urban Sketchers!

Along with many other Urban Sketchers correspondents, I am participating in a fundraiser for our international organization. I have donated two sketches of Paris and one of Copenhagen. These are fine art prints digitally reproduced on 100 % cotton rag. Here's the link for more information. Check out all of the work offered for sale!

 

2012 was important... and busy!

This has been a significant year. I've worked on several fronts, most art-related but not all directly involved with the making of art. 

It all began on January 2nd. A friend I saw at a party urged me to apply for a show at a great local venue. I was between galleries and so I thought, "Why not?"

In February, I made an illustration for The Morning News and fell hard for volcanoes as subject matter. I carried on with volcanoes as images for paintings and started a painting series as part of my application for a solo show.

 

So now, I'll be having a show fall of 2013! I'm a slow painter, so I'll need all that time to get the paintings done.

I had some illustration jobs to do, small and large. In addition to the volcano one for the Morning News, above, I designed the logo for a new literary prize that is launching in a few days. My friend Maxine Mills, a brilliant graphic designer, tweaked and fine-tuned. My reading pig looks very polished now, don't you think?

I illustrated the second edition of a local foodlovers' guide.

I curated the first group exhibition of Urban Sketchers, a brilliant idea proposed by Alice Southwick of the Ackland Museum Store in Chapel Hill, NC! My fellow Urban Sketcher correspondents were so generous in donating their work to this successful fundraising show.

I traveled a LOT in 2012. First was Rome in February to see two of our children and to sketch with Concetta Flore!

 

In late June, it was back to Italy again, this time for the wedding of a dear, old friend's son.

In October, compelled to visit the land of volcanoes again, my husband and I went back to Iceland.

Then, in early December, it as off to Vancouver for a brief celebration of our 21st wedding anniversary!

Putting it all together like this, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for what WAS, clearly, a very important year. I'm reenergized and I'm ready to begin again! I thank you for sticking with me through a year of infrequent blog posts. Life, the blogging world, change...and we change with them. I'll be back with more in 2013! Happy New Year to every single one of you!

Sending you love! Laura

Sketches of sketchers sketching at the sketchers show.

At the Urban Sketchers show, that is, at the Ackland Museum of Art store.  

I, along with Amanda Hughes, Director of External Affairs at the Ackland Museum, gave a little talk yesterday about sketching to a group of 12-15 people, with the Urban Sketchers show as background and inspiration.

I brought a dozen or so completed sketchbooks, as well as lots of my favorite art supplies, to show and talk about. So did Amanda.  Our styles are diametrically opposed, so it was a good way for beginning sketchers to see the range of possibilities in approaching subjects to sketch. Of course the wide range of work exhibited amplified that point! We talked about the phenomenon of Urban Sketching and about the work on the walls around us. We answered questions about tools and technique.

And then we sketched.

 

Here are three I did, in between talking to the participants.

In this first sketch, I used all sorts of drawing materials, since I had them with me.

 

Here I used one of my beloved Portuguese laundry pencils, plus a brush pen filled with acrylic ink, and two Faber Castel colored pencils. It's fun to mix up your media. I too often forget to do that.

Here I used a big graphite stick and smudged the lines with my finger after, you know, spitting on it.  We sketchers do what we must to get the drawing right. That's Amanda Hughes seated on the right. She did a lovely, elegant sketch of the scene through the store window. SHE refrained from spitting. I told you our styles are different ;D.

It was a fun occasion and I think and hope it was helpful for the participants. Having to get out my art supplies to talk about them was GREAT preparation for my upcoming art trip to Iceland! I've rediscovered lots of cool things I have and I will take several of these long-forgotten things with me!