A look back to see what I was doing in my sketchbook one year ago. Even without all my annotations, I remember everything about that experience perfectly well!
One Year Ago Today: Sketching a Dandelion
Pliny’s Allée
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~Henry Van Dyke
It’s actually feeling pretty spring-like today, but there is still snow on the ground. I can’t wait until it is consistently warm and sunny outside.
For this piece, I used my new set of sepia Copic Multiliner Pens. I really do like them and they offer a nice alternative to black. The only downside is that I wish they were just a tad darker and that the nibs were not so fine. I usually gravitate toward the thinnest nib in the set, but for some reason, these pens were especially fine.
Deep Roots
I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. -John Muir
This is a little drawing I made last July, from one of the photos I took at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in the springtime. I hadn’t used my dip pen in quite some time, and it was nice to get back to it. Drawing with a dip pen offers such a different experience than any other sort of pen. It is slower going, and there is more variation. It was interesting to draw the negative space (the dirt) around the various leaves. The end result is quite bold.
Product Review: Slate 2
I admit, I’m someone who likes gadgets and I recently got a new one, the Slate 2, which I thought I’d review for you here. This device acts like a clipboard that digitalizes your drawings when used with a drawing utensil surrounded by a metal ring. It is advertised as a way to combine digital art with “the pleasure of drawing on paper.” Basically, you draw on the paper and then your lines appear on the screen. You can change the color, opacity, nib size, and simulated drawing utensil (pencil, ballpoint, felt tip, marker, chalk, airbrush, and eraser). There are a few downsides, though:
- The equipment is glitchy. There were unwanted lines that appeared on the screen when holding the utensil just above the surface. This may be useful for the airbrush feature, but it is a big problem if you want to do detailed hatching, for instance. I read in the help forums that this issue can be made less noticeable by placing the stroke smoothing setting on LOW and the speed sensitivity on HIGH. This did help, but it did not totally eliminate the problem.
- There were also issues with the calibration of the utensil because there was a slight discrepancy between where my pencil was on the paper and where it showed on the screen. I found myself attempting to correct for this (you can see it a little bit on the replay). Therefore, the paper drawing I ended up with was not anything I wanted to keep afterward.
- There is no pressure sensitivity. With the pencil setting, you can choose between different hardness levels, but this feature is very limited.
- There is no bluetooth feature on a PC. It is annoying for me to have to use a USB cord at all times, especially when there are strict guidelines about how far away you must keep the unit from other metal objects, magnets, and computers/electronics.
- The company is located in France and I read in some comment threads that it was next to impossible to return it.
Even still, I think this is a fun toy. The price was not that bad, but if I wanted to get something for serious digital art, I would probably get an iPad Pro. The Slate 2 is definitely not anything I would use to create a serious piece of artwork with unless the glitches were corrected. I do like the replay feature and I think I would like to experiment with this some more. There is a feature to use the device without being connected to the software and then transferring the image to the computer afterward, but I have not used this yet and I am hesitant to do so with the problems I’ve encountered thus far. You can see my sketch and replay video below. I hope this review is helpful to anyone who may be considering this device.
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Warm Woolens
February can be a rough month for me, mostly because I am so sick and tired of winter and its unpleasantness, such as driving in snow. On the other hand, I think winter is a visually beautiful season and I do love the way snow transforms the world outside. I love looking out of the window and seeing the snow pile up, while being cozy in my house and not having to be anywhere all day. I was recently gifted some absolutely wonderful wool socks and I really enjoy wearing them while relaxing at home. They found their way into my sketchbook, of course.
Winter in Wales
Twitter Art Exhibit: Stratford-upon-Avon
About the painting:
I based this watercolor sketch from a snapshot I took this past July from a hilltop at Tower Hill Botanic Garden. It shows the Wachusett Reservoir and Wachusett Mountain/Mount Wachusett in the background. In 1842, Henry David Thoreau traveled from Concord to Mount Wachusett on foot over four days and wrote about it in his essay, A Walk to Wachusett. It’s a really interesting read, especially his comments on the Worcester accent, which apparently was a thing even back then.
Plans for 2017
For 2017, my goals are simple. First and foremost, I plan to successfully complete my nursing program. Secondly, I want to find a way to include art in my life during the school year. Last semester, I only broke away from my studies one time to do art and I missed it terribly. I don’t think I can mentally function for a whole year (including the summer) by only drawing between terms. At this point, I’m not sure how I will implement more frequent art making, but I will post updates throughout the year.
Last year, I did have the foresight to realize that I would be buried with schoolwork and I saved some drawings to post during the year. I am aiming for one post a month at minimum, but more often if I can manage.
I wish everyone reading this a healthy, prosperous, and creative 2017!
2016 In Review
While 2016 may have been negative in terms of events in the news and celebrity deaths, it was an amazing and eventful year for me personally. Here is a recap of some of the things that I have accomplished:
Art Achievements
- My most productive art making months were July and August. During these months, my schedule was the lightest and I felt an urgency to make as much art as I could before school started.
- My biggest creative inspiration in 2016 was Tower Hill Botanic Garden. I am still overflowing with ideas and you will definitely see more of Tower Hill in my art in 2017.
- I published 35 blog posts over the course of the year, which doesn’t meet my goal of one post a week. I am okay with that though, because I made a lot of artwork that I didn’t post (stay tuned in 2017).
- I published 52 posts to Instagram over the course of 2016.
- For six weeks in the beginning of the year, I participated in the online Sketchbook Skool course, Expressing. You can read my review of the kourse here.
- I participated in the Twitter Art Exhibit, held in NYC in March.
- I decorated and mailed a blank postcard to Greenfield Community College for a show of Mail Art.
- I completed a commissioned watercolor landscape painting for the album cover of Robert Louis’ debut Christmas album.
- I completed my red moleskine sketchbook and started a new moleskine, which is in progress.
- I experimented with Photoshop and learned how to make animated GIFs to feature my artwork.
- Crafty pursuits included making two hand-sewn mermaid dolls and an advent calendar for my daughter.
Personal Achievements
- I finished the prerequisites for the nursing program I am attending, started nursing school in September, and completed the first semester.
Thank you to all who visited me online during this past year, left comments, or sent encouraging emails. I am so grateful for the support of kindred spirits!
I will be back on Sunday with my goals for 2017.
Advent
I always wanted to do a proper advent calendar with my daughter and this year I finally got around to making one. I bought a plain papier mâché box with twenty-five drawers and decorated it with collage, acrylic paint and some stickers. I was going for a rustic, nostalgic, and nature themed advent calendar. I used a lot of Phoebe Wahl illustrations from Taproot Magazine. My daughter loves it and goes to it first thing in the morning to get her piece of chocolate.
Today, I finished my first semester of nursing school. I have been working tirelessly since the beginning of September. I only painted one time during the whole semester and I felt guilty about taking the time away from my studies. I am so looking forward to making some art over the next three weeks!