Start Art

I'm rediscovering art: creating it and enjoying it.  It has been an old friend but we became estranged. My mind came up with a question and insisted on an answer like a monkey who has stuck it's little hand in a cage to grab the coconut inside and will not let go.  My monkey mind demanded to know "What is your art FOR?" There is no answer to that question.  NEXT!

The rational mind and art have an interesting relationship.  In a way, in my opinion, art opens our minds and awareness to other ways to approach and experience things. Those ways are other than reason and logic.  In creating art, I've found it necessary to put aside concepts of what I'm doing in order to experience whatever it is more directly and wholly and report on it more accurately.

My old friend Art and I have been able to reconcile because I signed up for the online program Sketchbook Skool.  It was started by Danny Gregory who lives in Brooklyn, NY and Koosje Koene from Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Danny has created several books now which tout the valuable delights of sketching.   Danny's books include art and artists from all over the world. Some of these artists have become our teachers in the online kourses.

So far I have taken Beginnings and Seeing.  Through both of these programs I've got my art habit back. Danny, Koosje and the teachers are sold on the centrality of journals for sketching so I am doing my best to play along.  I did only one sketch so far that was not in a sketchbook. 


Sketching this Victorian using disposable extra
fine  pens with brown ink inspired me to buy
the Pilot fountain pen with the extra-fine nib
and the Noodler's Brown 41 ink.
 


Learning how to create an easily portable kit to create art wherever I go has been a gift. I had not done art in 10 years so my paints had become unuseable. Sketchbook Skoolers use mainly watercolor and gouache. Thanks to artist and sister student Jane Blundell, I learned about Daniel Smith watercolors and replaced my dried up paints. Teacher Roz Stendahl, who has the energy of 25 people, helped me to get our portable kit together. She suggested creating a portable kit rather than lugging tubes of watercolor around.

I tried water brushes for the first time.  A waterbrush is a brush which holds its own water supply inside.  That makes the pack of sketch materials much lighter to carry.

I've also begin a fountain pen collection -- mostly Lamy (medium, fine and calligraphy nibs) with two Pilot pens (Italic and extra-fine nibs).  So far the inks are by Noodler's and include the waterproof permanent black they say call bulletproof and their UV resistant brown, Brown 41.

Students in Sketchbook Skool come from around the world and there are thousands of them. When Seeing started, students were broken into groups of 500. The numbers are so large that it is challenging for the teachers to interact much.  Many of the students are excellent, experienced artists, including professionals and happily, they are glad to share their know-how, so it all works out.

My sketching has improved tremendously in a short time. Also, an Art-Self is coming out.  She has very definite ideas about what her style is and what it is not.  She is starting to have ideas for series to do.  Now she wants to start showing her work. She seems quite sure of herself. It's like having a new room mate, you know?  

Tomorrow's art adventure is a visit to John Muir House in Martinez.  Several students from Sketchbook Skool will get together there at noon.  It looks like there is a lot to sketch including the house itself, the adobe, the orchards and more.  I may go early since I have never been there. It will be my first time meeting any of the other students in person so that will be fun too. Stay tuned for the report.