Currently Browsing: Drawing From Life 153 articles
In Context—Use Every Moment to Sketch
In December there were a lot of appointments and a good deal of rushing about. And I’d decided to fill a Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Soft covered journal (7.75 x 9.75 inch) in about 10 days. Of course. So it was important to use every moment to sketch. You can read about this moment […]
Take a Breath When Reaching for a Likeness
I think the importance of immediate feedback, or a later (1 to 7 day) fresh eye appraisal is always important when sketching a portrait. I think it’s important too to take a breath when reaching for a likeness on paper or canvas. What do I mean by that? I mean it’s important to take a […]
Sketching Masks in Public
I carry a small square Hahnemühle Toned Watercolor Journal in my purse. It’s useful for the doctor’s office visits. I ended up sketching a thumbnail of the glasses shop across from the waiting room after all.
Not a Landscape Painter
I’m not a landscape painter, but something about the new season hosta and the fresh wood chips pulled me to sketch a little plant life. One of my friends had told me that she envied me my hosta. (Deer eat hers.) I have to say it really does look very healthy.
Visiting Minnesota—A Drawing Student’s Question
Recently a former Sketchbook Skool Student wrote to me asking me what to see when she was in Minnesota. (Evidently she was traveling here to go up north in Wisconsin for a drawing class at one of the resorts.) Of course whenever you ask someone a question like that you are taking into account their […]
Snow Pile By Any Means Necessary
The weather is turning warm again, getting back into the 20s (Fahrenheit). I’ve been able to sketch a couple snow piles this winter, but I think it wasn’t until almost the end of December that I got one! Before the weather gets too warm and we want to think only of other things, I thought […]
The Journal as Workbook
Below is a video which explains my view of the journal, and how I use my journal in my daily practice. Students in my “Drawing Practice: Drawing Live Subjects in Public” class asked me to share it publicly when I shut down my on-line teaching platform at the end of last year. They wanted to […]
2021 Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out Update
LisaMarie [LMNOP] and Robin Kutz, co-coordinators for the Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out (and MetroSketchers), have posted the following information about the 2021 Minnesota State Fair Sketch Out. You still have time to plan and participate in a variety of ways that will accommodate your current health/Covid/crowd/mask needs and safety issues. Here’s what the coordinators […]
In Context: Ever Wonder What Happens to All Those Beard Portraits I Paint?
Here’s a quick sketch I made almost exactly a year ago. I was standing in the bedroom looking out through the next room into the studio at the wall of portraits I had hanging in the studio. The beard portraits I do in my journals for fun can’t be cut out and framed. But I […]
I’m So Predictable in Subject Selection…
I’ve been downsizing and that means things are going into storage. Sometimes I take a moment a peek in the journals as I box them up. Here’s a page from two years ago (2019). It had been 5 months since I’d been out of the house—this was pre-Covid—I had just had my cataract surgeries […]