Barbara

I felt challenged to capture the texture of the feathers and the branches. As I sketched I noticed more detail on the wings and feathers; much more so than just glancing at a photo. The concentration helped calm me down and provided a sense of peace.

Just as everyone else has said, it seems wet on wet is better for large, more diffuse coloring. Dry on wet tends to be easier to control. For me the dry on dry was the most challenging. I still think my brush just gathers too much 💧. This I need to practice much more. It does help to know I can always go back and add more detail. Yet trying to fix a wet on wet with more wet just made a mess.

Since it is still winter, I used the animal cams on explore.org to find animals to sketch. In the second sketch, I used the top of the head to the shoulders as my reference. I used that reference for the length of the beak and the vertical proportions of the body. With the cat sketch, I used the negative space to define the white fur.

This exercise helps me feel like a 4 year old again! It certainly builds empathy for the mental effort and concentration it must be for the kiddos to learn how to write and distinguish letters. This has truly built respect. So... my drawings made me laugh, even as I felt a bit of anxiety and vulnerability in trying to capture the weird lines and proportions. Something else this exercise did for me was to let go (a little bit) on trying to sketch perfectly. I thinks it has loosened me up to sketch more quickly too and lighten up.

After reading posts from fellow students, I’m replying to myself as a way of remembering some of their good ideas. One said she wants to include pressed samples. Another student wrote that she wanted a way to capture her elation by drawing her emotion on the page. This reminds me of Holly Ward Bimba’s work that initially inspired me to even think I could start sketching. She gave me a calendar with sketches of items she had foraged in the Virginia woods. I love being able to include real items like this. I also like the idea in one of the videos whereby her sketches surround a month at a time. I think I’ll have to get a lot better at sketching to get there. As others have written, the pandemic and my sudden retirement hold a silver lining in that I now have time to slow down and  savor the minute details nature offers us so quietly.

The very first video gave me a sense of surprise and relief because it showed an easy way to give structure to a page. It showed boxes with sketches inside. I though, ‘Oh I can do that!’ Immediately my bit of anxiety at starting this new venture lowered. I also saw with surprise that the sketches were also breaking out of the boxes to provide some energy and movement on the page. As a very beginner who has limited experience with visual arts this gave me both a sense of the familiar and controllable (boxes) and the inspiration to break out of them. Another student entry before mine also mentioned how her environmental value to fill the page was important. This is true for me as well. I can see that the sketches can be small and leave room to write about what I was experiencing in the moment and about what I was noticing about my subject.The same student entry also mentioned how sketching plants might be easier at first and I that is a very good idea to start with. I also like her idea of sketching her garden and particular trees through the seasons. This is something I can also easily do. Another video mentioned using the basic geometric forms (as in the doves) and this is something else I’d like to focus on as I think it will be a good way to more efficiently capture the basic contours of my subject.