The view from my car, parked on Shattuck Avenue, in North Berkeley at twilight.
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All Posts On: Landscapes
Evening Light April 27th, 2008
Napa Sketchbook: In Search of Bubbles April 13th, 2008
Sketching and Champagne in Napa Valley
At Domaine Carneros
True to the “Crawl” part of SketchCrawl, Lisa and I recently spent a day in Napa sketching and visiting champagne wineries. We had a great time! We started at Domaine Carneros, where it was sunny and the views spectacular. Quite sketchable, and the champagne is divine!
We moved on the Mumm Winery and on the way stumbled upon an estate filled with thousands of tulips. It was absolutely stunning and we went back later for pictures and further investigation. By then it was raining, so we did our tulip sketches later from photographs.
We finished up at Domaine Chandon, tired but determined to sketch!
It was a wonderful, adventure-filled day. The weather was dramatic and the bubbles divine. It was Lisa’s idea to make the trek, and I must say it was inspired! She is moving to Texas now, in fact she’s on the road today, so our sketching adventures are on curtailed for now.
I will miss you Lisa!
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SketchCrawl 18: San Francisco April 6th, 2008
Last Sunday Lisa and I joined the intrepid San Francisco SketchCrawl group on a chilly grey morning at Ghirardelli Square, where over 60 artists turned out to sketch in and around the Fisherman’s Wharf area.
It took some fortitude to sketch in the windy open areas, but we were rewarded late in the day when suddenly the sun came out. By the time we all meet back at the starting point to share our sketchbooks it was downright balmy.
We had a great time exploring and sketching both indoors and out. I took some photos of the event as well, and Lisa and I finished the day in civilized manner with Irish Coffees at the Buena Vista Cafe.
SketchCrawl is an inspiring event which takes place several times a year. All over the world artists spend the day sketching, on their own or in groups, and then share their work online. It’s great fun and a good way to get yourself motivated to really do some drawing. Keep an eye on the SketchCrawl website for the next event and come on out!
Related:
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Monterey Sketchbook, Part Three March 12th, 2008
Out and About
Continued from: Monterey Sketchbook, Part Two
I finished up the Monterey/Pacific Grove trip on a brisk day with a couple of outdoor sketches. There is a fantastic walking path along the coast with inspiring views at every turn. I took a refreshing walk from Pacific Grove to Monterey and back, and did a sketch at each end of the route.
See Also:
Monterey Sketchbook, Part One
Monterey Sketchbook, Part Two
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Lunar Eclipse February 24th, 2008
On Wednesday there was a full lunar eclipse here in the Bay Area. I really wanted to draw it, but cloud cover obscured most of the event. We did catch the end though, at about 9:45pm from our front yard.
I did this little (2 x 3 inches) sketch in about 15 minutes. It was a cold and wet night so I went indoors and started by painting the sky and moon. I let the sky dry with it’s hard edge then painted the shadow, softened that edge. I went back outside and inked the tree. Inside once again I finished up with some additional watercolor on the tree.
One benefit of high quality watercolor paper is that it is easy to create a variety of edges. Hot press (HP) paper, which I favor, tends towards distinct hard edges which is a look I like, especially for quick sketches.
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The Cottage February 19th, 2008
Here is a cottage that we stayed in recently at the Carneros Inn, a "retreat" in the Carneros Valley. It was a cold, foggy weekend, and the cottage was quite cozy. We didn’t stay long: I’d like to go back on a sunny weekend and tour around the area. There are several champagne wineries nearby.
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SketchCrawl 17: Chinatown, S.F. January 25th, 2008
Saturday was the worldwide SketchCrawl 17 event, and over sixty of us gathered in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco to spend the day sketching. It was a blast!
My friend Lisa joined me for her first SketchCrawl, and we met up with Cathy who I had met at the last Berkeley Crawl. The three of us spent the day wandering Chinatown, sketchbooks in hand. It was sunny but cold, and bundled up we persevered.
We had a great Chinese lunch and joined the full group at the end of the day to share our work. There is a lot of talent out there! It was very inspiring to see everyone’s work. I am always amazed at how differently we all tackle the very same subjects.
Storydesign took a picture of Lisa and I sketching on Clay Street, and made a close-up of my sketch:
Related:
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SketchCrawl 11: Sausalito January 21st, 2008
The San Francisco SketchCrawl group had over 80 people for SketchCrawl 11 on September 23, 2006. We met up at the Ferry Building and rode over to Sausalito in Marin County for a fine day of sketching. The weather was perfect!
Here are my sketches:
Ferry Building Tower
Book Cart at the Ferry Building
Courtyard Fountain, Sausalito
Across from Starbucks
Boat at Dunfy Park
On the BART Ride Home
Related:
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Holiday Card 2007 December 25th, 2007
This year for our holiday cards I made a sketch of my favorite fountain all decked out for the holidays. Arlington Fountain sits in the center of the Marin traffic circle, here in Berkeley, and is a reproduction of the fountain that stood there from 1911 through the 1950’s.
The sketch seemed a bit stark to me though (maybe needs a bit of background?), so decided to try an extremely cropped version of it for some of the cards. I like the result! I had the cards made at Shutterfly, who did a fine job just like they did on my cards last year and on my foodie note cards.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Related:
Other Projects
Arlington Fountain SketchCrawl
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Wurster Hall, U.C. Berkeley December 13th, 2007
I found myself on the U.C. Berkeley campus recently and decided to sketch Wurster Hall: the Architecture Department and my alma mater. This “neo-brutalist” building is widely regarded as an ugly monstrosity, especially it’s prison-like tower. Having spent a LOT of time there I can tell you it’s just as unpleasant to be inside of as it is look at.
Of course I am biased. Although I loved my overall experience at Berkeley I did not enjoy the architecture program in the least. The explanatory rant is a long one which I will spare you. Here is one oddity though: at the time I liked engineering but detested freehand drawing, which we had to be very good at but which was never taught.
Now I love sketching and often draw buildings, no less. Life can be so ironic sometimes, can’t it?
Related Post: SketchCrawl on the Berkeley Campus
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An Interview with Author Mari Le Glatin-Keis November 29th, 2007
Mari's Costa Rica Sketchbook
After recently reading the new book The Art of Travel With a Sketchbook I wanted to know more about the author, Mari Le Glatin-Keis. I was fortunate to be able to correspond with her by both email and phone, and discovered that she is very enthusiastic about the joys of travel sketching.
Mari
Sketching
Martha: What kind of sketching do you for your own enjoyment?
Mari: Sketching is amazing, isn’t it? I find myself sketching whenever I travel; everything I see stimulates me to record. My sketchbook pages are all I have to carry memories, as I don’t take photographs. At home, I don’t sketch every day but I always carry a small sketchbook and pencil on my walks and bicycle rides. Even if I do not use them I like to have them on hand. When I don’t have my sketchbook, I sketch with my eyes; I literally use my eyes as if they were pens or brushes.
Martha: What are your preferred sketching tools?
Mari: The more I sketch, the less I seem to need and the smaller my sketchbooks become. These days I use:
- 6 x 8 inch Pentalic sketchbook, not too small, not too big
- 0.7 mechanical pencil
- small watercolor set, a kid’s set or whatever is on hand
- 2 brushes, one big and one small
- a few color pencils and pastels
- glue stick
Voila: the simpler, the lighter, the better!
Martha: You travel quite a bit then?
Mari: Yes, I grew up in France and each year I spend time there, here in the US, and also in Mexico. My travel workshops give me the opportunity to keep a balance between continents but I feel at home wherever I happen to be. I am living primarily in Oregon right now and every time I come back to Corvallis I jump on my bike and ride towards the coastal range with a smile on my face. I am here right now and it is beautiful, even as we move into winter.
I have always been a sketcher and a traveler. I met my husband Dick in Ecuador 30 years ago when I was making my way through South America sketching plants and flowers. Back then sketching was already my life and expression, my “raison d’être” as I moved deep through the Andes and the Amazon, amongst the local people. Sadly, I later lost those four years of recordings in a shipwreck in 1978 (another long story!) and that was that. It was my first big lesson in “letting go” and about the ephemeral side of life.
Martha: What prompted you to write The Art of Travel With a Sketchbook?
Mari: In years of leading sketching workshops I have seen people of all ages, with no art training, becoming bold, confident and expressive. I hoped to share what I have witnessed and encourage more people to sketch.
I wanted to tell people how sketching can save your life as it saved mine! Sketchbooks are more valuable than any finished piece to be hung on a wall as they contain your first emotions and your own interpretation of a moment or a situation. When sketching we are open to the world outside us, we forget about pains and worries, and are totally in the moment.
I also wanted to encourage people to have a deeper travel experience by observing cultural details and local people more closely. In many countries traveling with a sketchbook will set you apart from a regular tourist. Often I remind my participants that if traveling with a sketchbook is about recording life as it is, wherever we are, then we should allow our pages to reflect what we see. For example, when I look at my many sketchbooks from Oaxaca in the eight years I went there, I can see what was coming. The tension, the increasing contrast between the rich and the poor, it is all there in my pages.
Martha: How did you go about publishing the book?
Mari: I met my publisher Suzanne McNeil in one of my workshops in Oaxaca. She was enthusiastic about the book and upon coming back from my travels I had a contract waiting for me.
Although I have created other books, this was the first time I had to write the full text as well as illustrate. This was a new challenge, especially since English is not my first language. Making the entire book took a year and a half of intense work. I even created pages in my sleep!
But the real hardship came when the designer asked me put my mockup on the computer. Until then, when laying out pages for a book I manually cut and pasted the pages and I loved that process. Layout on the computer was very different. A friend and workshop participant, Dianne Roth, saved me when she volunteered to help me transfer my hard copy onto the computer.
Martha: You’ve included quite a bit of student work in the book?
Mari: Yes, I always knew that if I was going to make a book on sketching I had to give my participants a voice. Only they could illustrate the approach. Over 20 participants volunteered to share their sketchbook pages and write about their experiences.
In workshops I see people re-discovering the “child” in themselves and playing, and I always feel privileged to witness their transformation. I am totally amazed by their spontaneity as, without any hesitation, they lay down the most innocent lines in their sketchbooks. I often envy my participants for their pure and spontaneous renderings: I am still trying to let go of the heavy training I received in art school!
Martha: What other books have you done?
Mari: In art school I studied printmaking and I have always wanted to be a book illustrator. I love to illustrate people’s lives and words. In 1997, a couple of weeks after returning from a two year stay in Provence with my family, Margaret Anderson asked me to illustrate her story Children of Summer, based on the insect world of Jean Henri Fabre. I loved the whole process, working with Margaret and drawing the fascinating world of insects.
Meanwhile, I was sending my sketchbooks to French publishers. In 1999, Equinoxe offered me a contract to publish my travel sketchbooks: a dream come true! Four sketchbooks that I had already created, with no publication in mind at the time, were published as books. A fifth sketchbook, Balades a travers l’Armor et l’Argoat, was a new assignment.
I also created a daybook, Mon Jardin Jour après Jour, in 2001. Day after day I went out in my small garden here in Oregon, a sketchbook in one hand and a pencil in the other, and I recorded all the changes I saw throughout the year. I loved the process of creating that book!
Martha: Reproductions of travel sketchbooks are especially popular in Europe then?
Mari: In Europe the market is flourishing, and publishers are eager to meet traveler-artists to publish their sketchbooks. The sketchbooks describe not only the beauty of the places they travel through but also the social and political climate, and are most often about far away places. These books are used quite a bit in teaching as well. The focus though is on artists who are of professional standing and their work is fairly polished. It’s not something that non-artists are encouraged to try.
It was seeing more and more of these “beautiful” art travel books on the shelves, and remembering the real miracle of the expression taking place over and over right in front of my eyes during workshops that motivated me to write my new book. I knew I had to tell people that if they wanted to sketch too, they could!
Martha: How do you teach Travel Sketching?
Mari: I don’t teach; I encourage people to take visual notes. I give them tips to help them launch into this great adventure of recording whatever they see wherever they are, either at home or traveling.
You do not learn “how to” sketch, you sketch. In travel sketching there is no right or wrong, no rules or recipes. Words, lines, colors, collage: use anything you have on hand to express yourself. In sketching it seems like the less technique you know the better you are. Many of us have to gain confidence in ourselves before learning skills. It is all about trusting. If we put our expectations and our critical mind aside, beauty will come through.
Martha: What workshops are you planning for 2008?
Mari: Next year I will be leading workshops in the US, France and Mexico. All of my workshops take place in visually and culturally stimulating environments. For 5, 8 or 10 days, my participants can totally relax, play and dedicate their time to exploring the wonders of sketching.
I’ve created three workshops in the Pacific Northwest for next year, each in a unique environment. Wherever we are there is culture and beauty to record in our sketchbooks and I am really happy to develop such workshops here in the US.
Nevertheless, I keep going back to the two regions of France I know best: Brittany, where I grew up, and Provence, where I lived from 1992-94. In 2009, I will add Le Lot to my destinations. It is a part of France that I have been discovering over the years and I feel I know enough of the region now to share its wonders with my participants.
I am also about to travel to Mexico to make final plans for a workshop there in 2008 as well.
Each trip is not only a sketching workshop but a voyage through cultures and peoples on which I am able share my friends, food and culture with my participants.
In her book’s introduction Mari says: “This book is a humble statement with no pretensions, written from my heart”. Her enthusiasm for sketching and sincere desire to share it with others is contagious, and I can see that this book was done as a Labor of Love. It was a true joy to talk with Mari and I hope I”ll get to attend one of those workshops soon!
For More Information:
Book Review: The Art of Travel With a Sketchbook
About Mari Le Glatin-Keis
Mari’s 2008 Workshops
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Ashland Oregon Sketchbook November 18th, 2007
Last month I went to Ashland Oregon for a long weekend of play and relaxation with some women from my book club. It’s the “Bad Girls” book club: you don’t have to read the book if you bring good snacks!
Ashland is a pretty town surrounded by scenic rural areas, and is especially known for it’s almost year round Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We were not able to get tickets for all of the plays we had hoped to see, but we had a great time hanging out, eating out, shopping and talking.
The Fall colors were stunning! The trees were on fire each with their own blast of color: yellow, orange, pink or red. I was able to do some sketching but didn’t fully do those colors justice, I’m afraid. I also had fun sketching from the plane again. That sketch, of course, was drawn mostly from memory.
Sketching in Ashland
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