Currently Browsing: journal practice 28 articles
Another Potential Journaling Hiccup: The Perfect Time and Place
Blog readers and students often write to me about their hopes and deferred dreams for their journaling and their art life. They live with the hope that if they can “just get through to retirement,” or “Just get through this current crisis [fill in the blank as to what that is]” that the clouds will […]
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 […]
Journal Practice Hiccups?
I always tell people any day is a great day to start a journal practice. Start. But I know that many people think it important to have a milestone day like the first of the year for a starting point. If it gets them to start then I’m all for that. As a new […]
Different Drawing Approaches for the Same Subject
Just this week I was asked by nine people how I start my drawings. I use different approaches to start my drawings depending on what pen I’m using, the paper size, and even just how I feel my eyes are doing on any given day. For a more detailed response I explain that I have […]
Coming Up in July on Patreon
During July I’ll continue my discussion of dog portraits. Subscribers can watch me sketch this ink portrait. I’ll also look at minimal line and wash approaches to sketching a white dog. I hope you’ll come and join the conversation.
Now Use Even Fewer Strokes…
Did you spend your weekend working with your brush pen like I suggested on Friday? If so you’re ready to use even fewer strokes. Draw your subject with as as few strokes as possible. Think before you draw a contour line or make texture marks. Do you really need ink marks for that contour? For […]
In Context—Playing Catch Up
I’ve been offline for five days and it seems like I’ve forgotten everything about the computer and the programs I work in. I’m playing catch-up and a post here was on the top of the list. It has been a difficult month physically for me: increased vision difficulties and a back spasm that made […]
In Context—It’s All Grist for the Mind Mill
Ever since childhood I’ve been the type of journal keeper who has visual elements in amongst written elements. It doesn’t matter if it’s something that I hear on the street, or in this case on the TV. It doesn’t matter if it is something that I’m reading. Everything is fair game, and I get down […]
In Context: Wake Up and Sketch
I couldn’t resist the title to today’s post—I think everyone needs to sketch of course. But also, if you end up waking up because of outside street noise, don’t stress, just sketch.
Bookbinding and Journaling, I Can Be Contrary In My Choices
I started the new year with one of the journals I bound in the fall of 2017. (I made 50 plus journals in a month while in a cast [foot and ankle] due to a fall down some stairs. Another contrary choice I see in hindsight—but the orthopedic surgeon had cleared me for activity.) It […]